Beware of the early warning signs of testicular cancer

Modern people's awareness of disease prevention has generally increased. It has become a common sense that we should treat diseases when we are sick and prevent diseases when we are healthy. As we all know, disease prevention is not only easier than disease treatment, but also can nip the disease in the bud and avoid suffering from the pain. So, what are the early warning signs of testicular cancer that we should be alert to? Let's learn about it together.

Early warning signs of testicular cancer include:

1. Testicular heaviness: Testicular heaviness is one of the symptoms of early testicular cancer. Since testicular tumors are formed by the massive growth of tumor cells, they are a substantial mass. When they grow to a certain size, the weight of the testicles increases suddenly, and the patient will feel heavy and fall, or even have difficulty walking. If you hold up the testicles with your hands, you will feel a certain weight.

2. Hard testicles: If you touch your testicles with your hands, they feel like rocks and are very hard. This is significantly different from the symmetrical swelling and soft texture of the testicles when the testicles are inflamed. Hard testicles are an important symptom of early testicular cancer.

3. Negative light transmission test: Symptoms of early testicular cancer also include negative testicular light transmission test. Generally, when hydrocele occurs, the light transmission of the renal capsule and testicles is enhanced, and the light transmission test is positive; however, when the testicular tumor grows densely and solidly, there is no fluid inside, and the light transmission is greatly weakened, showing negative results.

Testicular cancer has no obvious symptoms in the early stage. The typical clinical manifestation is a gradually enlarging painless mass, which is discovered accidentally by the patient himself, his family or the doctor during routine examination. Half of the patients often feel that the testicles are heavy, and sometimes feel a pulling sensation in the scrotum, lower abdomen or groin, which is obvious when jumping or running. After standing for too long or being tired, local symptoms will be aggravated with a feeling of falling or mild pain. When there is an accidental collision or squeezing, the pain will be aggravated, which will attract the patient's attention and prompt him to seek medical treatment. Some patients often have symptoms similar to acute orchitis or epididymitis. After anti-inflammatory treatment, although the inflammation has been controlled, there is a mass that does not disappear. At this time, you should be alert to the possibility of testicular tumors.

The initial symptoms of a very small number of testicular cancer patients are often caused by tumor metastasis, such as intra-abdominal metastatic lymph nodes merging into masses that compress adjacent tissues and the celiac plexus, causing pain in the abdomen and lower back, and may also be accompanied by symptoms of gastrointestinal obstruction, or coughing, shortness of breath, and blood in sputum due to lung metastasis.

In the case of cryptorchidism, when the ectopic testicle develops malignant changes, a gradually enlarging mass often appears in the pelvic cavity or inguinal area, and the absence of the ipsilateral testicle is found during physical examination. Testicular tumors can sometimes occur bilaterally, simultaneously or one after the other. Testicular tumors can occasionally cause symptoms of endocrine disorders, which often occur in patients with trophoblastic carcinoma, interstitial cell carcinoma, and embryonal carcinoma, manifesting as male breast hypertrophy, precocious puberty, or feminization.