According to a new study a single injection of chemotherapy drug can help cure a common type of testicular cancer in many patients. The researchers at Southampton University say that chemotherapy drug carboplatin is commonly used to treat ovarian and lung cancer. Researchers have found that carboplatin injection can effectively cure early stage seminoma with fewer side effects and the patients resume their normal lives much more quickly than radiotherapy.

Majority of cases include “seminomas”, affecting the sperm-producing cells in the testicle, and nearly half of these are caught at an early stage. A man with this form of cancer often have their affected testicle removed and then they are offered either a single dose of chemotherapy drug, a longer regime of radiotherapy, or the option to have no extra treatment with a higher risk of cancer returning.  

Dr Ben Mead, the lead researcher has revealed that the research team looked at almost 1,500 patients. In which 904 patients were given radiotherapy and 573 patients, carboplatin, and found that the rate of relapse in both groups was almost the same.

According to the researcher the results were “reassuring”, and that carboplatin was the better option.

The BBC quoted Mead as saying: “Giving patients a carboplatin injection rather than radiotherapy is less unpleasant with fewer long-term risks.”

“The initial results of the trial looked encouraging, but we needed to follow patients for another four years before we knew for sure that they had been cured,” he added.

Professor Tim Oliver, from the Bart’s and the London Medical School said, the another advantage of carboplatin was that by treating full body rather than one area, the risk of another testicular cancer emerging in the other testicle was also reduced. He said, only 2 out of 573 patients on carboplatin experiencing this, compared with 15 out of 904 patients in the radiotherapy group.