Treatment of testicular cancer

Several types of treatments are commonly used for testicular cancer. The best method is determined depending on the type of cancer and how far it has spread.

There are several levels or stages of cancer spreading:

Stage I - cancer located only in testicles
Stage II - cancer has spread to regional lymph nodes
Stage III - cancer cells present in the abdomen
Stage IV - cancer has spread to other parts of the body

Testicular cancer is usually slow-growing, and tends to stay localized; in most cases it is diagnosed in stage 1 or 2.

Surgery: This is the most common and most invasive type of testicular cancer treatment. The operation of removing a testicle is called orchidectomy. All affected structures will also be removed, including regional lymph nodes. This operation is called retroperitoneal lymph node dissection and it could be far more complicated then the removal of testicle itself.
Because the cancer in most cases hits only one testicle, the removal does not affect a man's fertility or erectile ability later in life. There is even a synthetic protesis that can give a normal appearance, so, the only evidence left after the operation is the scar.
If both testicles are being removed, sperm can't be produced, and infertility is unavoidable. To circumvent this, a large amount of sperm could be deposited in a sperm bank for later use.
About 5% to 10% of patients have complications after the surgery, such as bowel obstruction or wound infection.

Radiation Therapy: This method uses high-energy rays to kill the rapidly growing cancer cells. This is considered “local therapy”, meaning it hits only the testicles. Unfortunatelt, these high-energy rays affect the normal as well as the cancerous cells. Possible side effects include fatigue, skin changes, loss of appetite, nausea, and diarrhea. Radiation will also adversely affect spermatogenesis in the healthy testicle (if there is one) for at least a year or two.

Chemotherapy: Strong anti-cancer medications are often used as the initial therapy of testicular cancer. The problem with this kind of therapy is that it represents a systemic type of therapy, which means these medications normally must travel all through the bloodstream and affect normal cells throughout the body. This can result in many possible side effects, such as coughing, shortness of breath, nausea, fatigue, diarrhea, hair loss, vomiting, fever, mouth sores, or skin rash. These mediations also kill the cells found in bone marrow, whose primary role is to produce and store blood cells.