Risk Of Testicular Cancer And Treatment Options For Fertility Preservation

Testicles are the male sex organs and they are responsible for producing and storaging the spermand releasesing the testosterone. One of the most common cancers in patients of reproductive age istesticular germ cell tumors. Testicular cancer is a rare disease that is caused due to uncontrolledgrowth of spermatogenic cells in the seminiferous tubules. The number of young men withtesticular cancer has increased in recent years significantly and so prevention and early detectionfor treatment is important. Cryopreservation of semen before the cancer treatment starts, iscurrently the only method to maintain male fertility because chemotherapy and radiation therapyare long-term protocols, and also they have impaired fertility. The amount of damage of thesetreatments on spermatogenesis depends on combination of drugs and radiation intensity used thatmay cause infertility in men. After treatment of cancer, many patients need artificial reproductivemethods for fertility for example, in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection(ICSI) are successful techniques for treatment. New therapeutic methods such as stem cell therapyhas been suggested, which is still in the phase of research and clinical trials. New fertilitypreservation techniques use testis spermatogonial stem cells before cancer treatment. Severalstudies concluded that Risk of Testicular Cancer has increased and the need to novel treatmentmethods to be felt for Infertility Preservation before or after treatment of cancer. Currenttreatments including chemotherapy and radiation therapy may cause low quality semen andazoospermia after the treatment process because germ cells are being very sensitive to chemicalsand irradiation. New therapeutic approaches such as cell therapy has been successful in animalmodels before cancer treatment. Also, IVF and ICSI can be useful to make fertility after testicularcancer treatment.