A study conducted by the Cancer Research U.K. has found that the number of young British men, who have their testicles checked for signs of cancer, has tripled in the last decade.

In 1990 only 10 percent of men checked their testicles, but this increased to more than 36 percent by 2000.

Cancer Research UK scientists quizzed 17,000 students in 21 European countries in year 1990 and later on they surveyed another 19,000 10 years later. The examination rate in British men in 2000 was double the European average. Across Europe the number of students who checked their testicles increased from 13 percent to 18 percent.

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It hit like a ton of bricks and it wasn’t something that I was prepared for – maybe later in life but not at 32. In one week I went from a normal life to finding out I had testicular cancer and undergoing surgery to remove the infected testicle. There was no time wasted and little preparation for the blow to my psyche.

The week started like any other, I went to work on Monday and something just wasn’t right. As it turns out something was more than just wrong. An ultrasound on Tuesday would indicate cancer had invaded my right testicle and my fears were confirmed. Wednesday brought a meeting with the urologist that would remove the testicle and Thursday was surgery. In less than seven days, my life changed.

You also have to understand that my medical life was so very charmed before all this. I’d never broken a bone, had a cavity, I still have all my wisdom teeth, and I’d never had surgery before. To be honest my worst fear was that I’d wake up with a tube down my throat like on ER and have to deal with that. To my great comfort there was no tube, just a bandage virtually duct taped to my hip and a missing testicle upon my waking in the recovery room. As I walked out of the hospital that day I realized there was a long road ahead.

Before I could begin chemotherapy, I had to bank sperm (in case the drugs left me sterile), undergo breathing tests (since the Bleoymicin can scar your lungs) and have an additional consultation with a radiation oncologist should my condition require radiation as part of treatment. I was lucky since a pure seminoma responds well to chemotherapy and likely would not require radiation.

I had heard the horror stories of chemo, loosing weight, frequent bouts of vomiting, and a generally miserable time. I prepared for all that, but it never came. During the course of my treatment, I never got sick, actually gained weight, and the worst thing that happened was that I perpetually felt tired. It’s a difficult feeling to describe, what chemo feels like that is. I used to say, it feels like I’m hung over and walking through loose sand all the time. But as I read the description it doesn’t make a ton of sense to me either, but that’s the way it felt.

The bottom line is that I made it through and have been fine ever since. My chemo lasted from October to December and between each cycle I had a CAT and PET scan to judge the progress. All along the way we saw the infected lymph nodes get smaller and the disease gradually die.

You might be asking, so how did he get through? What allowed him to cope? I’ll be honest – I gave in to the simple fact that I didn’t cause this. I had no hand in causing my disease; it’s not like lung cancer from smoking of ruining your liver from drinking. Once I came to this realization, my focus shifted to killing the disease and getting it out of my body. While I can’t say that I enjoyed the weekly IV sticks and the daily trips to the cancer treatment center, I didn’t mind them as much. Beyond the mental shift, my family played a tremendous role in my recovery. For the surgery and the chemo my family was by my side and kept me going. While I could have done virtually all of it on my own, it was very helpful to have someone at the house since I really wasn’t working at this time and too much time alone would not have been good.

While this story seems very positive, there are a few aspects of my cancer diagnosis that require some attention. First, I have this feeling that I’m not out of the woods yet. I have kept up with all my follow-up visits and have regular CAT and PET scans, blood work, and physical exams. However, there’s a voice in the back of my head that every now and again whispers to me – beware…And finally, while my surgical scar has healed and I’ve lost the weight I gained during chemo, there are emotional issues that I’ve yet to deal with fully. I think some upfront counseling would have helped, but that didn’t happen and now I’m dealing with it.

Bottom line – testicular cancer is beatable with modern medicine. The thing is if you think there’s a problem, get it checked out. Find a doctor you trust and tell them the facts, while we all hope for the best case, you need to be more prepared for the truth than I was. Should the diagnosis be cancer, understand that it’s not the end of the world and there are places to turn like the American Cancer Society for advice and a friendly person to talk to who has been where you are now.

About Author

I live in South Florida and run two websites, www.swisswatchdeal.com and www.govjobswap.com

Source: ArticleTrader.com

Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in men between the ages of 15 to 34. There are two different types of testicular cancer based on how the cells look under a microscope. The classifications are seminoma and non-seminoma testicular cancer.

Metastatic nonseminomatuous testicular cancer can be cured in many men with chemotherapy. Sometimes after the treatment the cancer returns. The journal BJU International published results that stated if men recur more than two years following chemotherapy it may prove to be different than cancer that recurs earlier, and may require different treatment options.

Researches in the UK did a study of men who had late relapse. They wanted to see if surgery could in fact have good outcomes on these men. The study concluded that if surgery is feasible it appears to improve survival.

The lump Billy Mayfair felt in the shower made him nervous enough to see a doctor.Then came a call from the urologist while he was at the Buick Open, asking that Mayfair return immediately. Only when he sat in the doctor’s office did fear set in.

“It was at that point that I got scared, because it was definitely cancer,” Mayfair said.

The good news — stunning news, the more Mayfair thought about it — was getting out of his bed Tuesday morning and driving to Medinah Country Club for a practice round at the PGA Championship.

It was 13 days ago he had surgery to remove his right testicle, getting the cancer before it had spread.

Six days ago was one of the best days of his life, when Dr. Gil Brito in Phoenix told him tests showed it was gone.

“Two weeks ago today, if you would have told me I was going to be here, I would have never believed it,” said Mayfair, who turned 40 on Aug. 6.

Cancer has always been a word that made him shudder.

A day rarely goes by without him thinking of Heather Farr, the LPGA Tour player who was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 24 and died four years later.

They grew up in Phoenix, playing at Papago Golf Course.

In 1992, they won the boys’ and girls’ divisions at the Junior PGA Championship.

“I remember the day I was in Hartford, Connecticut, when I called home and my instructor … told me that Heather was diagnosed with breast cancer,” Mayfair said. “I didn’t know much about it, but being around Heather and seeing what she went through and all that, I learned a lot more. It scares me, absolutely. And I miss her. I miss her terribly.”

In the waiting room the day of Mayfair’s surgery was Phil Mickelson, one of his best friends.

Talking about Mayfair on Tuesday, Mickelson said he was thrilled about Mayfair’s prognosis and amazed that modern medicine would allow him to return so quickly. Mickelson never said he was at the hospital.

“Him being there in the waiting room tells me what kind of guy he is,” Mayfair said.

The cancer was encapsulated, but Mayfair said he either must be tested every two or three months to make sure the cancer is gone, or go through two weeks’ of radiation and be tested once or twice a year.

“For now, I’ve got a clean bill of health,” he said.

MTV — 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.

LARGO – A Largo woman is thankful after we took action and helped her son, who has testicular cancer, get an appointment he desperately needed.

Francesca Jacobs is like many mothers who would do anything for her child.

So when her 25 year old son Christopher was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer, she jumped in to help him with calls on medical care and insurance.

Because her son was unemployed, Francesca says he qualified for insurance through Pinellas County Social Services.

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Q.    How common is testicular cancer?

A. In 2000 (the last year for which figures are available) there were 2,000 new cases of testicular cancer diagnosed in the UK.   In the USA, it is estimated that there will be 9,000 new cases diagnosed in 2004.  This means it is between 1% and 2% of all cancers in men.  The number of cases has been slowly increasing for some time.

Q.    What causes testicular cancer?

A. We do not yet understand what causes this type of cancer.

Q. What are the risk factors for testicular cancer?

A. Unlike most cancers, testicular cancer does not get more common as you get older.  Most cases occur in men aged between 25 and 45, with very few cases in men over 75.  This type of cancer is most common in white Caucasian males.  Men of other races have a much lower incidence, even when living in the same county.  The only exception to this is the New Zealand Maoris, who have a high rate of testicular cancer.  Within Europe, this cancer is up to five times as common in some northern countries (eg Denmark, Sweden and UK) than in many southern countries (Italy, Spain and Greece).

Babies born with undescended testicles are known to have a 5 to 10 times higher risk of testicular cancer.  There are a few medical conditions, which if present during childhood, also increase the risk. These include an inguinal hernia, mumps infection of the testicles and testicular torsion.   Having a vasectomy does not increase the risk of testicular cancer.

Q.    Are there different types of testicular cancer?

A. The vast majority of testicular tumours are called germ-cell tumours.  There are two main types of germ cell tumour: seminomas and teratomas.  Younger patients are more likely to have seminomas and older patients to have teratomas.

Q.    How dangerous are testicular cancers?

A. There are relatively few deaths from testicular cancer, because it is one of the easiest to cure.  In the year 2002, only 74 men died of this cancer in the UK and, in the USA only 360 are expected to die in 2004.  This means it is a very rare cause of death.

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