What causes hard testicles?

Hard testicles are likely to be caused by testicular tumors. If you feel swelling and hardness when you touch your testicles, it is a very typical manifestation of early testicular cancer. The hardness is concentrated on one side of the testicle. As the disease progresses, about 40% of people will feel swollen testicles and have a dull pain. About 10% of people with hard testicles may have symptoms of internal testicular bleeding, which causes more severe pain.

If the testicles become hard in the middle or late stages, there will be symptoms of cancer metastasis such as coughing, hemoptysis, blurred vision, neck lumps, and back pain. If one testicle is found to be enlarged and hard like a stone, the possibility of testicular cancer should be highly suspected, and tumor markers should be checked: For example, an increase in blood alpha-fetoprotein indicates that it may be testicular embryonal carcinoma; an increase in AFP value indicates that the tumor is highly malignant and easy to metastasize. At the same time, imaging examinations such as B-ultrasound and CT should be performed to understand the nature of the mass, whether there is lymph node enlargement, metastasis, etc.

Testicular cancer has many family members, mainly germ cell tumors and non-germ cell tumors. Germ cell tumors include seminoma, teratoma, embryonal carcinoma, and choriocarcinoma; non-germ cell tumors include gonadal stromal tumor, gonadal germ cell tumor, reticulotesticular adenoma, stromal tumor, carcinoid, and adrenal residual tumor. Among them, germ cell tumors account for more than 90% of testicular cancer.

In fact, testicular cancer has a 90% cure rate. If there is no active treatment in the early stage, the cure rate of late testicular cancer is about 50%. Since the testicles are very hard, it is possible that the testicles are cancerous, so you should go to the hospital for relevant examinations as soon as possible and take measures to treat it. Pay attention to selenium supplementation at ordinary times, because selenium is necessary for the body, and it can enhance the antioxidant capacity of cells and has an anti-cancer effect.