00:00Hello there, welcome to the whole month of Movember, November, when we are focusing a lot more to men's health than the previous month where we're focusing on breast care and also breast health.
00:12For the first week of this installation, we're going to talk about testicular cancer. In fact, the whole month we're going to talk about testicular cancer.
00:20One of the problems about testicular cancer is that there are certain risk factors that may predispose somebody to get testicular cancer.
00:28And one of them is called microlithiasis.
00:38Micro obviously means very small. It's in fact 1 to 3 mm.
00:44Lithiasis actually just means that it is a little bit of calcification or stones inside the testicle.
00:51Why is that the case? In fact, nobody knows.
00:53So testicular microlithiasis is actually common.
00:57It's as common as 1 to 9% of the general population.
01:01If it's so common, why is it so worrying?
01:04In fact, what is worrying is that it is related to certain men having predisposed risk of getting testicular cancer.
01:13So what is the link?
01:15In fact, nobody knows.
01:16What we know is that perhaps the germ cell is actually undergoing changes.
01:22It's called dysgenesis.
01:24Or perhaps it's because of atrophy, because of age degeneration or because of regular inflammations or even something like a genetic causes such as Down syndrome are more predisposed to that.
01:39And also people who have problems with Klinefelter, which is a genetic condition.
01:47Under these circumstances, the risk of getting testicular cancer, it's about 20 times higher than general population.
01:56So therefore, if somebody has got discomfort in their testicle, and ultrasound shows that the testicle itself has got these microlithiasis,
02:08then we would like to monitor the individual throughout a period of a time so that we know that they don't develop testicular cancer.
02:18So microlithiasis itself also is related to men having infertility.
02:25So that itself, we don't really know whether it's a cause or the effect.
02:29So sometimes infertility itself will cause degeneration of the germ cells and cause microlithiasis.
02:36And microlithiasis itself may also induce all these problems of infertility.
02:42But what we know is that men who are infertile are more likely to have testicular cancer as well.
02:49For the following week, we're going to discuss how is testicular cancer presented,
02:55and then exactly what can we do in order to identify whether this is cancer or not,
03:01and what treatment is given to men who are presented with testicular cancer.
03:05So stay tuned for next week's Putting Dr. G on the Spot.
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