1. Surgery Is the Primary Treatment Method
The thought of losing a testicle is upsetting, but this is likely the first option you'll be presented with by your doctor. To offset the psychological effects of testicle removal, your doctor may attach a water-filled sac to your body in place of your removed testicle to make you feel as though it's still there. If your testicular cancer is discovered during an early stage, surgery can cure it outright.
Your groin contains lymph nodes, which your doctor might also choose to remove during surgery because testicular cancer often spreads to them. This procedure comes with a risk of nerve damage, which may lead to difficulty ejaculating. However, more advanced techniques are being pursued which minimize nerve damage, and nerve damage usually doesn't interfere with your ability to achieve and maintain an erection.
2. Radiation Therapy Can Work on Seminoma Cancers
A particular sub-type of testicular cancer called seminoma responds to radiation therapy. If you undergo radiation treatment, you'll be exposed to concentrated X-ray beams that will target the cancerous growth with remarkable precision. However, you should expect to experience some side effects if you use radiation to treat testicular cancer. Infertility is a common side effect, though some men go on to recover their fertility down the line.
3. Chemotherapy Treatment Slows the Cancer Spread
If surgery failed to remove the entire cancerous growth, or if the spread of testicular cancer to other parts of your body is detected, your doctor will probably recommend that you start chemotherapy. This involves ingesting drugs that are engineered to destroy malignant cancer cells, though they may also cause infertility as a side effect.
4. Ask About Clinical Trials
You may have a case of testicular cancer that doesn't seem to respond to conventional treatment methods. If so, or if you have a recurrent case, you might want to ask your doctor about participating in a clinical trial. These trials use experimental and in-development treatment methods that could have a positive, lasting effect on your condition.
One of the primary areas of testicular cancer research is in stem cell transplants. Since chemotherapy can affect your bone marrow, doctors stimulate the production of bone marrow stem cells, which are removed and frozen. Then, you'll undergo chemotherapy, and your doctor will reintroduce the frozen bone marrow stem cells afterward so your bone marrow will replenish itself.
A word of warning, though: if you do choose to take part in a clinical trial, make sure you understand and accept all the risks involved. Because these treatment methods are in the early stages of development, it's not always possible to predict their side effects.
