I made this post a few days ago detailing how my most recent surveillance CT scan had a lymph node enlarged (1.7 cm) that was borderline on previous scans.

I was pure seminoma with a borderline 1.0 cm left para-aortic lymph node at time of orchi in December 2022. My oncologist ordered another CT for staging in Feburary 2023, which came back with lymph nodes "within normal parameters". As a result, he did not have me do another scan until fairly recently, as my bloodwork was good (For record, my initial tumor presented with elevated beta-HCG).

I realize that I'm likely looking at Stage II Seminoma now, but my mind keeps going back to the part about the liver:

LIVER: Normal density. Hepatic segment 7 hypodensity measuring 2 mm likely cyst series 3 image 18.

This is new and wasn't there before. It says its likely a cyst, but I'm worried, given I've read that new cysts in testicular cancer patients are likely metastasis. I've read how much liver metastasis impacts prognosis and now I'm utterly terrified. How likely is spread of Seminoma from a single lymph node like this to the liver in the course of months? My oincologist is unavailable to answer until my appointment on Thursday and I'm losing my mind until then.

Sorry to spam this board, but I'm truly freaking out and want to know what I'm up against.

Hey I’m a 3 weeks post orchi of the left testicle and I’ve started to notice a sort of fluid sac growing sort of higher up on the left side? The best way to describe it is that my body is “growing a new testicle” going off of feel and size. Is this something I should go get checked out or is this normal?

Follow up post from mine earlier in the week talking about the massive amount of areas I was feeling leading up the surgery.

Had the surgery this morning and was in a ton of pain immediately after waking up. Was given a bunch of pain meds and it got under control and I was able to walk to the bathroom without too much pain. Fast forward an hour or so, I go to get up again and start getting absolute 10/10 pain (screaming and crying in pain) shooting through my right groin.

The pain was so bad they had to cancel discharging me and admit me. Did anyone else encounter the absolutely worst pain of their life trying to move their legs around and/or sit down and up? It feels like intense muscle spasms or like something got torn. The Uro casually looked it over and told me the incision looks ok.

Hello, I have a few questions about my case. About 3 months ago I started hiding my penis because my penis is very noticeable and uncomfortable with pants. I started hiding it only at work, but after a month of hiding it, my right testicle started to hurt and I began to notice that a vein was quite swollen and when I touch it it feels hard and can be moved and it hurts a little, almost not at all. A week ago the veins in my right testicle became swollen but it only lasted for a day, which caused me to get a little worried so I went to my doctor to get checked. When the doctor examined me, he said that everything looked normal and that there was nothing out of the ordinary. He simply told me that it could be a testicular injury or something less serious. He did not prescribe anything for me and so far my vein is still a little swollen and hard, less than the first week. I have an upcoming appointment for a testicular ultrasound to rule out anything malignant. My question is what do you think it could be, and do you think it could be something bad?

Hello everyone!

I'm mentally very unwell, ever since I discovered a very small hard lump in my left testicle. It's maybe the size of a pinhead, about 0,3-0,5 mm maximum, but even that is how I'm able to guess based on feel.

Actually it is very hard to find, and had a couple of "oh shit, it went away" moments in the last week, but eventually I always find it. It's on the left side of my left testicle, and almost at the top, right below the epididymis. It feels like it is connected, but it is not. It is very small, and sometimes I wonder if it just a trombosed tube/vein, but cannot confirm via touch. It feels like it's on the testicle and hard.

Based on reading here, I accepted the fact that it is cancer. I'm seeing an urologist on monday, but can't shake the fact, and I'm barely able to function as an adult now.

Do I have any hope it is something else?

Hello everyone I am having surgery soon because of a small lesion found on lefty… I gotta decide whether or not I want to opt for the prosthetic. For those of you that have it or have had it, does it actually feel normal down there or is there discomfort? I feel like this is an important decision because I don’t want them going back into me to take it out if I don’t like it. Also how does it look and feel compared to the actual testicle? Thanks for any feedback!

I’m currently on my second cycle of 4xBEP and I’ve had constant saliva where I have to spit it out and it’s a lot. Does anyone have a remedy or something that helps because I drink a lot of liquids and eat enough food it’s just annoying and with no taste it doesn’t help.

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https://preview.redd.it/rqwkrwlqgbyd1.jpg?width=1514&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31881d81b5b66634e4b6e126fb62f9934ff9200a

Left testicle 5x3.5x1.5 cm, left spermatic cord 9x1 cm, membranes mobile. On section, 3 gray-white homogeneous nodules from 0.2 cm to 0.9 cm at the largest, limited by testicular tissue.

Description of Additional Studies:

CD30, OCT 3/4 - positive, Podoplanin (D2-40) - negative in embryonal carcinoma cells. Podoplanin (D2-40), OCT 3/4 - positive, CD30 - negative in seminoma cells.

Histological Conclusion:

Mixed germ cell tumor of the testis represented by embryonal carcinoma (50% of the tumor) and seminoma (50% of the tumor), against a background of germ cell neoplasia in situ. Spermatic cord and epididymis are outside the tumor. pT1 ICD-O code 9085/3 ICD-10 C62 30.10.2024

Hi guys!
I have clear CT and oncologist said that I am 1A (P T1N0M0S0).
What should i do next? Any suggestion?
I don't know if i have lymphovascular invasion, but T1 means NO?
Is embryonal carcinoma in my case predominant?
Is there any cases in multifocal embryonal carcinoma?
Is my chance of relapse something like 15-20%?

I had my righty removed on sep 23 the first week or so I felt like normal other than pain from surgery. Around week 2 I felt as if I was getting extremely angry at insignificant things that before the surgery wouldn’t have upset me much if at all. Also my wife has said multiple times she feels like I’ve been even more emotionally distant, quick to anger and lack of compassion or empathy. I will admit I am already a very non emotional person and sometimes can lack sympathy and compassion for others at times but it seems the surgery has made me a lot quicker to anger and frustration. I’ve heard others on here say almost the opposite that they became more emotional to the point of crying over movies that would have never affected them that way pre operation. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar? if so what helped?

Happy Men's Health Month!

In today's episode of It Takes Balls...

Dr. Timothy Clinton is an associate surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard University. Dr. Clinton talks about performing minimally invasive retroperitoneal lymph node dissections (RPLND), how robotic RPLND compares to open RPLND, risks involved with both options, how candidates are selected for robotic RPLND, and more!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/9EcU1t66c20

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/it-takes-balls/id1590038802?i=1000675291830

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2QFfkQ9zUZ4CZTmCYouPE4?si=tsOn3DPhTXGuQ2je3bfYqA

First of all, thanks to everyone for the responses on my prior posts, it was good to hear from others in similar or unfortunately worse scenarios.

I got my Orchi on Friday and Pathology today. It's Stage 1 Seminola with a 30% chance of reoccurrence due to the size and spread to rete testis.

My options are Surveillance or one round of Chemo. I haven't decided yet, but am leaning towards surveillance.

Would be curious if others had to make this choice at 30%

So i've posted a little bit about my current diagnosis before. What I was wondering is a little bit on how the tumor itself works. Its a mixed germ cell tumor with it being 80% yolk sac, 10% seminoma and 10% teratoma. But i'm not exactly sure what that means other than it's my biopsy. My dad works in a pathology laboratory with doctors and he put me in contact with someone there who specializes in urological dermatology, and he told me that among testicular cancer, a mixed germ cell tumor is among the most responsive to chemotherapy. No cancer is good obviously, but if you were to have one, this would be the one. I also heard same thing from my actual urologist who did my orchiectomy (bye bye rightie). However, when trying to Google more about this, it is telling me stuff about seminoma and non-seminoma but whats confusing is how mixed germ cell tumors are considered "non-seminoma" even if they have seminoma in them? It says a mixed germ cell tumor is a non-seminoma but thats pretty much the extent of it. Now, I originally thought tumors and cancers were a single type of cell that is continuously dividing. I also originally thought that once a cancer spreads, its now considered a different kind. I was surprised to learn that, in my case, even though it has spread to my spine and hip, it's still considered testicular and is actually highly curable, even at a later stage. In fact, my AFP markers have gone down to a an 1,100 currently from an original 10,000 after orchiectomy and the spinal canal tumor removal. So obviously, something is working.

Met with my oncologist the other day and he said the response to chemo was amazing and he considers the actual cancer is more likely than anything else all dead. There’s only 4 lymph nodes present and all had significant shrinkage and are all sitting at .7, 1.0, 1.1, and 1.1. He told me surveillance is a totally reasonable option. Referring me to a surgeon and said he’s likely going to tell me surveillance is a fair option given the sizes. So prayers that now this all keeps shrinking and we avoid the rplnd all together. God is good guys.

I finished chemo a year ago this month. I’ve had a really rough go during chemo and after. I’m wondering if anybody else has been really struggling mentally since they got sick? I’m in therapy and that’s helping, I just want to know that I’m not the only one who’s struggling this much. To be clear I had four months of chemo and three subsequent tumour/lymph removal surgeries.

My body feels like I’ve been beaten down. It’s hard to get back to any regular exercise because things hurt and I’m scared to hurt myself. I also broke 5 ribs in my back so I have a very uncomfortable feeling in my back almost all the time.

I also find this sub kinda triggering now.

Back in May, after having sex with my girlfriend, I noticed my left testicle felt hard. I looked it up on Google and got really freaked out. About a week later, I went to a urologist. The doctor checked everything, and it seemed fine. He thought I might have injured it during sex. A couple of days later, my testicle went back to normal.

Fast forward to early September, I felt a small lump in my left testicle while I was in the shower. I brushed it off since I had already been checked earlier in the year.

When the lump didn’t go away, I decided to get an ultrasound earlier this month, though I was in another country at the time. Once I was back in the U.S., I saw a new urologist. Since the ultrasound was done abroad, he recommended an MRI here to get a clearer picture. My blood work came back normal with no tumor markers, and the MRI looked fine overall, aside from the tumor in my left testicle.

I’m not scheduled to see the urologist again until early November. By the time of my appointment, it will have been about a month since my first ultrasound.

I've tried calling the doctor's office but there isn't any availability until then. Should I go to a different doctor? or is one more week of waiting probably safe?

PS: Since I got the ultrasound results I've been experiencing weird pain in my groin area. MRI was done about a week ago, could I be imagining the pain?

Can testicular torsion at age 26 make you infertile.I am worried 😟 with answers am getting.

Hi All,

I'm 31 and was diagnosed with testicular cancer (pure seminoma) in July when I had my orchiectomy. Tumor was under 1cm in each dimension and they also found a similar sized regressed tumor as well.

Upon follow-up scans in September, they noticed an enlarged abdominal lymph node (2.6x1.5x4.8cm). All tumor markers are within normal range and no other enlarged lymph nodes.

My oncologist at Stanford recommended chemo over RPLND given the 4.8cm dimension so I'm currently undergoing 4xEP and just finished my first round last week.

The team did mention we may abbreviate my chemo if post-cycle 2 PET is negative as per SEMITEP trial. Rather than full 4 cycles of EP, I'd receive only a 3rd cycle of single agent carboplatin after 2xEP.

Has anyone gone through this treatment plan or have any thoughts? Seems as though results are relatively similar between 4xEP and 2xEP + CARBO. If this is an option for me, I do worry about deviating against the proven protocol.

More information about the SEMITEP trial here.

What’s up y’all, im 18 yo and i know some of you guys aren’t doctors but I’m just wondering if you kings know what these tumor markers mean. My LDH is 166 within healthy range while my AFP is 15.565 and HcG is 60. I am getting a Right Ball Removal in the next week and my mass is about 1.7 CM. What do these numbers mean and what are some tips for post-operation and if I’m cooked :(. Plz any thoughts, tips, or suggestions would greatly help lol. ( again I know it’s Reddit not my doctors office but he hasn’t answered me and just wondering from people that have experienced this before)

About 3 weeks ago I had my orchiectomy, I finally get an appointment with my oncologist. I have been waiting for them to tell me what I’m doing going forward. I’m still kind of stuck in limbo unfortunately, the oncologist was going over my results with me but they’re not fully sure what it is yet, the tumor was/is malignant but it’s type is still unknown. My ct results also said that it was just in that spot so he classified me as stage 1b. They are not entirely sure what to do with me going forward but it’s been an interesting journey so far, the only thing I could think of as he was going over the results with me was it’s funny that as of right now I have an unknown type. I just have to wait til the 13th now to find out what to do going forward hopefully they have an answer for me.

A couple days ago i was feeling my testicles for any lumps and i came across the soft squishy part (epididymis i think it was called) and got really worried because it was painless when i touched it and i knew TC lumps were painless so i got scared.

I learned after about the epididymis and what it was but now i get some very mild discomfort (I wouldn’t even really consider it pain) sometimes for a few seconds but only when i think about my testicles, sometimes its the left one and sometimes the right one.

Is this just a sort of placebo effect im having? I haven’t had this sort of thing before my scare earlier with the epididymis, I haven’t had any trouble sleeping at all and i don’t get the discomfort when my mind is somewhere else like when im eating or driving.

Am i worrying for nothing?

I got my right testicle removed 6 years and 8 months ago, can I start donating things again?

I feel the urge to help other people with health problems and I wonder if I'm even allowed to.

I'm living in Germany, FYI

I’m awaiting my initial consult with medical oncologist following my orchiectomy. My HCG pre surgery were 2.2 and post-op bloodwork shows the cancer markers have gone down. I’ve got two “olive-sized” retro peritoneal lymph nodes I’m going to need treatment for. My testicular cancer mass pathology came back as seminoma.

Anyone have any idea what chemo might look like for me?

34 year old Male. I just got out of the marines, pretty healthy and fit going into all this mess.

had sudden but not serious pain in testicle done video x-ray both testicles are normal in size. Both epididymis are normal in sized,outline,echotexture and vascularity. No significant fluid collection noted in bilateral scortal sac. Right testicles measure 1.9×2.6 cm and left testicles measure 1.8x2.4 cm. Main point is small thing not on testicles but in back of my testicles is there. Should I be afraid of testicles cancer??

2 days ago I had a suddenly onset sore spot on my right testicle. It doesn't hurt unless it's touched or pressure is on it. There's no lumps or anything but there is a small ridge type thing that feels like a cyst more than a lump. (it's been felt before and was told it's nothing to worry about).

Mainly just wondering what causes this? Google said it's a sign of testicular cancer, which sent me spiraling.

17 here, I was shaving and all of the sudden i looked in the mirror and thought i might have saw some kind of lump on my right testicle. Im not sure if this was just extra skin or what it was but it was in the relative area of the things that sit on the testicles. Im just really paranoid and worried, I go to the doctor tommorow just for my annual checkup but im not sure if i have an issue. Please help.

Hi! I'm posting this on behalf of my husband, who had an orchiectomy two weeks ago. The pathology came back with 98% Embryonal carcinoma, with LVI. Then he got a CT scan, which showed no cancer in the nodes! He had no blood markers either. He emailed with Dr. Einhorn and shared both the CT and pathology results. Dr. Einhorn said there were multiple options of course, but currently the recurrence rate was 50% and with one round of BEP chemo, the rate would drop to about 5%.

Then today, we went in for an oncologist appointment. The onc said based on my husband's Stage 1B EC diagnosis, the chance of recurrence is only 20%, and a round of BEP would drop that to 10%. This obviously is quite different from 50% dropping to 5%.

Oncologist told us that 1x BEP would only be ~2 hours per day in the chair for 5x days, and then 2 more Mondays for just half an hour. Is this reasonable? seems shorter than we expected based on researching on this sub... We're in a big city with great hospitals if that makes a diff at all in the effectiveness of the meds available.

Oncologist said we could try for kids as soon as 3 weeks after the chemo, that the medicine would be out of his system by then, so no risks (though possibly lower sperm count). We'd expected him to say 1-2 years!

Most of this is honestly very heartening, but we're also very confused about the discrepancies. Has anyone in a similar situation gotten advice that aligns with what we got today?

TLDR summary of conflicting opinions:

1.) odds of recurrence with no treatment (Onc said 20%, Einhorn and everything we’ve read said 50%)

2.) odds of recurrence with chemo (Onc said 10%, everything we've read says more like 5% or even lower)

3.) how long each chemo treatment takes (Onc said 2 hours or less, everything I’ve read says closer to 6 hours)

4.) how soon you can try for kids (Onc said in 2 or 3 weeks 🤯, everything I’ve read says 1-2 years)

Hey everyone. To preface this, I am going to get checked by a doc, but just curious if anyone else has had a similar experience. My left epididymis feels slightly longer than my right, and the longer bit at the top feels soft and moveable. I wouldn’t say it’s a lump it more just feels like the epididymis itself is longer but the end is not attached past where it normally would be like on my other testicle. There is also a really small hard lump attached by what feels like a little cord. Anyone had a similar experience?

After my 2nd round i had a follow up with a male doctor and he said if any of his 60+ yr old patients were on this regimen it would probably kill them. Put things into perspective for me. I finished in July and still feel like I have a ways to go mentally and physically. I’m grateful that of all the cancers I could get I got TC, but I hate hearing that from other people who’ve never had to deal with any cancer. The long weeks on BEP where you’re there M-F for 6 hours a day is truly the worst shit ever. I would talk to old people during chemo who said they come like once a month or every other week for an hour. I was like damn i’m in here nonstop for 2 straight months? And I know the reason is because it is highly curable, so they just want to blast it out of us quickly (pause). The plan is that us TC patients will never have to see oncology again after these few months. Many others are on lower dose chemos for life. I understand that.

I feel like chemo was downplayed by my whole oncology team for me. I cant imagine a more rigorous 2-3 month chemo stretch. And obviously the several months that follow. Again I’m not whining in here like oh we have it harder than people realize (though we kind of do). I guess this post is to say if you guys are struggling during BEP or in its aftermath, this is legit one of the craziest chemo regimens they can put you through. It’s because you’re a young healthy man that you can handle this. You may have gotten the “best” cancer but this chemo and the days following are tough. Be kind to yourself, ask for help, and know you are strong af for being able to handle all this poison.