How is testicular cancer treated?
Overview

With testicular cancer, it is important to distinguish between localised cancer, restricted to the testicle, and metastatic cancer, which has spread to other sites. If the cancer is restricted to the testicle, this is known as stage 1 cancer.

If the cancer has spread to local lymph nodes, in this case in the posterior abdomen, but not to other parts of the body this is known as stage 2. If it has spread to other organs, such as the lungs or liver, this is known as stage 3 testicular cancer.

Microscopic examination of tumour tissue allows two main types of testicular cancer to be distinguished.
These are known as seminoma and non-seminoma tumours. The latter covers a wide range of different tissue types, but all are similarly aggressive.

A further distinction is made according to whether or not levels of tumour markers in the blood (discussed above) are raised.

Deciding what type of treatment to use is very complicated and is based on a combination of all the above factors.