An urologist is urging men to regularly exam their testicles in the shower to prevent the delayed diagnosis of testicular cancer, which often manifests as painless lumps, after a 25-year-old man from Taipei was recently diagnosed with the disease.
Shu Tien Clinic Department of Urology attending physician Chou Ku (周固) said the man turned to the clinic for help after he felt an unusual hardening in his right testicle.
“The man’s right testicle did not appear swollen and his tumor-marker level was also normal. We were only able to make the diagnosis after an ultrasound detected a tumor inside his right testicle, which was later determined to be seminoma, the most common testicular tumor,” Chou said.
The man had his right testicle removed, Chou added.
Chou said the primary causes of testicular cancer is unknown, but a number of studies suggest it may be linked to genetic factors.
“However, people with Down Syndrome are found to be 10 times more prone to developing the cancer, while men who are infertile or have undescended testicles also face a higher risk,” he said.
The cancer is most prevalent among adults aged between 15 and 35 and men over 60, and it can be completely asymptomatic in its early stages, Chou said.
“Some patients experience no noticeable symptoms, while others notice swelling, a feeling of heaviness, pain or hardening in the affected testicles,” Chou said.
Data compiled by the American Cancer Society showed that the incidence for testicular cancer has been rising annually by an average of 1.2 percent among men aged 20 to 35, but the disease responds well to chemotherapy and has a high survival rate of more than 90 percent, he said.
Nevertheless, he advises men in the high-risk groups to regularly examine their testicles in the shower by feeling for hard lumps or any change in size or shape.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater