Testicular cancer can be treated in a few different ways. In many cases surgery may be offered to remove the affected testicle. Other treatments include radiotherapy, chemotherapy or a combination of treatments.
Your doctors will yarn with you about what treatments they recommend and what your options are best for you.
Yarn with your doctor, nurse or Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander health worker about which treatment you might have and any traditional healing, bush medicines, Men’s Business or cultural practices you want to include in your treatment plan.
Surgery
Surgery is a procedure done to remove the cancer and help to stop it from spreading to other parts of the body. Surgery for testicular cancer is called an orchiectomy, where the affected testicle is removed. Sometimes, your surgeon may need to do a more surgery to remove lymph nodes in the abdomen. Surgery involves staying in hospital and having an anaesthetic and an operation.
There are different types of surgery, and how you will feel afterwards depends on what type you have.
Your fertility (ability to have children) may be affected due to the surgery, but there are ways to help with this, such as sperm banking – see Fertility section below.
The doctor will yarn with you beforehand about what is going to happen. Yarn with your doctor, nurse, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander health worker. If you need to travel away from home to have surgery, assistance is available for travel and accommodation for you and your family.
Read more about surgery.
Radiotherapy
Radiotherapy, or radiation therapy, uses X-rays to destroy cancer cells in one part of your body.
It is used for some types of testicular cancer. It can also be used where testicular cancer has spread to distant sites.
Men having this radiotherapy have it 5 days a week for 2-4 weeks, and each session takes around 15 minutes. But it might be different for you.
You can only have radiotherapy in cities and some big towns – see this list. If your doctor thinks radiotherapy would help, and you don’t live near a radiotherapy site, assistance is available for travel and accommodation for you and your family.
Other men have radiotherapy from the inside. Little capsules are put in your bladder. They give off radiation, hoping to kill the cancer.
Yarn with your doctor, nurse, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Health Worker or social worker.
Read more about radiotherapy.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy or “chemo”, involves you taking strong drugs to kill the cancer cells. Chemo is used in testicular cancer to treat cancer if it has spread beyond the testicles. It is also used if the blood tests show it is needed after surgery. This can help to guide how much chemotherapy to use.
Many people have chemo in cycles – usually one day or a few days every 3 or 4 weeks, but this might be different for you.
Most chemo comes as injections into your arm or hand that drip in over an hour or two. You usually need to go to a hospital or clinic. But you don’t need to stay in hospital for chemo. Some chemo may be given in a pump over a few days that you can take home with you. Some chemo comes as tablets. If you’re having chemo, your doctor will tell you exactly how it will work for you.
Chemo can make people feel sick for a while, but there are things they can do and take to help. Mob who have had chemo say that spending time on Country, Men’s business, bush medicines and cultural practices help with the symptoms of chemo.
Yarn with your doctor, nurse or Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Health Worker. And read more about chemotherapy and side effects.