Monday, November 12, 2012

Pregnancy Test Identifies Testicular Cancer

http://blogs.webmd.com/breaking-news/2012/11/pregnancy-test-reveals-testicular-cancer.html

In this article posted on WebMD, a regular pregnancy test can be used to test for testicular cancer. Both tests share a protein that triggers the test kit to indicate a positive result. That protein is hCG.

This was discovered by a user on the website Reddit. A man used his wife's pregnancy test kit as a joke, but it ended up being positive. After Reddit users indicated that hCG could possibly lead to testicular cancer, he checked for it and learned that he in fact tested positive for testicular cancer as the pregnancy test had indicated.

This is very beneficial because it is a cheap and easy way of finding cancer in men. These are tests that we should continue to improve upon in the future: cheap and easy to use.

1 comment:

  1. I find myself being very skeptical about this. Even though it may have detected this particular protein, it very well may have been a special case. I would need some evidence that indicates where hCG comes from and it it does indeed consistently leads to testicular cancer. This reminds me of when the class learned about sensitivity and specificity. If pregnancy tests are super sensitive, it could result in many false positives. This could cause a frenzy in many men who take "pregnancy tests" and generate positive results. I would say that the general public should proceed with caution on this one.

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