Archive for the ‘Testicular Cancer’ Category

tom20green.jpgMTV — the ultimate source of music videos and pop culture — has been around for 25 years now. And that amount of time makes for a lot of memories.

So in recognition of the entertainment MTV has offered over the years, Indystar.com, Indiana’s #1 local media site, takes a walk down memory lane and counts down 25 best MTV memories. It’s fitting that many of the memories include actual music — although some may say MTV is not really about music anymore, with music videos hard to come by — so Michael Jackson’s 1983 14-minute video Thriller makes the list and so does the 1985 performances of Live Aid, a conglomeration of musicians who sang to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

But many memories are not recollections of music videos — or even musical performances. They are nostalgic remembrances of other media events — like a kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears during an award show, the running of the popular Beavis and Butthead show and Remote Control game show, peeks into spring break extravaganzas, and roof-raising reality shows like The Real World and The Osbourne’s.

And even one socially-conscious piece that aired to raise awareness of testicular cancer. On May 23, 2000, wacky, stunt-pulling comedian Tom Green let viewers into his private world, in an operating room while he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous testicle and several lymph nodes. Green survived the surgery well — and he is surviving cancer still today — and his public handling of a serious disease goes down in MTV history as something truly memorable.


ABC News aired a health news story to discuss the Lance Armstrong Effect, named after the seven-time Tour de France champion who survived testicular cancer even after it had spread to his lungs and brain — why so many testicular cancer patients survive cancer — and how it might be heat that is killing testicular cancer cells.

Johns Hopkins University researchers hypothesis it might be simply a matter of heat. Testicles are naturally a few degrees cooler than the rest of the body, and when the temperature of testicles are raised to normal body temperature, testicular cancer cells appear to be destroyed.

Because Armstrong’s testicular cancer had spread beyond his testicles, researchers began to consider that heat might have played a role. The focus on Armstrong led to the term the Lance Armstrong Effect when referring to cancer cells destroyed by heat. In all fairness, the oncologists point out, this could have been named after any testicular cancer survivor.

“We’ve known for a long time that heating cancer cells kills them,” said Dr. Donald L. Trump, an oncologist and senior vice president of clinical research at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. Hypothermia treatment has been used in kidney and liver cancer cases.

In the interview, Dr. Trump explained that a needle is inserted into the tumor and the temperature raised up to 120 degrees. For whole body hypothermia treatment, the temperature can only safely be raised to 102 to 106 degrees. To watch the news video and learn more about the Lance Armstrong Effect and the applications of heat in killing cancer cells, go here.