“Good news” and “testicular cancer” are two phrases almost never appearing in the same sentence, but they do here today, and for good reason. A new study has brought science closer to offering a simple genetic test for healthy men to determine if they are at risk of the dread disease.

Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK, have discovered a number of genetic markers

"Our study has almost doubled the number of DNA variations linked to increased risk of developing testicular cancer and advanced our ability to use genetics to predict disease in healthy men," said first author and study leader Dr. Clare Turnbull, a senior ICR researcher in genetics and epidemiology.

Although testicular cancer is the most common cancer that occurs in men aged between 15 and 34 years, it is considered not very common on the whole when compared to other cancers. Still and all, the American Cancer Society estimates there will be circa 8,850 new diagnoses of and 410 deaths from testicular cancer this year.

Depending on the type of cancerous cells they detect, doctors diagnose different types of testicular cancer. About 95 percent of them are testicular germ cell tumor (TGCT), up from 54 percent during the period 1973 to 2003.

Previous work from Turnbull and her team has already revealed that half of the risk for testicular cancer is inherited. It has also become clear that there is no single gene for testicular cancer.

The new study brings the number of genetic indicators for testicular cancer up to 44. The researchers believe that these 44 DNA variants account for around a third of the inherited risk of developing TGCT.

The ICR scientists learned that when a men tests positive for all 44 of the known genetic markers, his risk for developing TGCT is some 14 times higher than that of the general male population. By regularly testing healthy men for this increased number of genetic markers, the researchers are estimating that doctors could pick out those with a 10-fold higher risk of developing the disease, potentially offering them the chance to benefit from medical surveillance or even treatment to prevent the disease.

Next steps? Turnbull notes that, although progress has been good, there are still more genetic markers to be discovered: "Further studies are needed to understand how these genetic changes interact over time to influence the biology of the cell and lead to development of cancer."

The research was published in Nature Genetics.