Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: annie123 on 27/03/2012 21:50:16

Title: Does testicular cancer affect sperm cells and children of the sufferer?
Post by: annie123 on 27/03/2012 21:50:16
If someone has testicular cancer - which is 'cured' by radiation, -would there still be anything changed in the DNA that would be passed on to a child fathered by someone after the cancer had been detected? Would the child be more susceptible to the same cancer?
Title: Re: Does testicular cancer affect sperm cells and children of the sufferer?
Post by: yor_on on 29/04/2012 13:07:07
No, not as I know. I read somewhere that '2 testicles generates more than 8 million sperm per hour' which may be true or not, but it is 'freshly made' madam.
Title: Re: Does testicular cancer affect sperm cells and children of the sufferer?
Post by: RD on 29/04/2012 16:34:43
... it is 'freshly made' madam.

They are present in the nads for over two months before deployment ...
Quote
Sperm originates solely from the testicles, and this is where sperm develop. The initial spermatozoon process takes around 70 days to complete. The spermatid stage is where the sperm develops the familiar tail. The next stage where it becomes fully mature takes around 60 days when its called a spermatozoan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm#Human_sperm

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Cancer-of-the-testicle/Pages/Treatment.aspx
Title: Re: Does testicular cancer affect sperm cells and children of the sufferer?
Post by: Geezer on 29/04/2012 19:27:13
I developed seminoma 27 years ago. (I think I'm probably going to survive.)

I always assumed it would have been a bit dodgy to have children after the radiation treatment, although we had our family by then, so the question never really came up. It looks like that might have been a wrong assumption.
Title: Re: Does testicular cancer affect sperm cells and children of the sufferer?
Post by: RD on 29/04/2012 20:37:28
Apparently error correction mechanism(s) exist ...

Quote
The data collected indicate that chemotherapy and radiotherapy
treatments are mutagenic to both male and female germ cells at
various stages of maturation. However, human studies monitoring
the offspring of treated individuals have shown that the observed
increase in mutations in germ cells has not translated into an
increase in fetal abnormalities. Whether the treated parent was
male or female, the incidence of fetal chromosomal or congenital
abnormalities remained the same as for the general population

(Holmes and Holmes, 1978; Li et al., 1979; Green et al., 1991;
Sanders et al., 1996).
http://humupd.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/4/394.full.pdf
Title: Re: Does testicular cancer affect sperm cells and children of the sufferer?
Post by: yor_on on 30/04/2012 10:20:41
Should have checked my facts there. Still, I think its constantly made on a ongoing basis? As for how long it can be stored inside? I also have some weak memory of that it is good to ** on a regular basis as that keeps the sperm healthier? But I haven't checked that one up either :) But I think it's correct.
Title: Re: Does testicular cancer affect sperm cells and children of the sufferer?
Post by: Nizzle on 30/04/2012 11:48:19
It's possible if you're unlucky.
If you have testicular cancer, and one (or more) of the spermato- stem cells has been altered, then all sperm cells coming from this/these sperm stem cell are altered as well. Now, usually, this will result in suboptimal motility/mobility of the affected sperm cells, which would probably make that one of your healthy sperm cells will reach the egg first and fertilize it. Then, in the case that you have the bad luck of fertilizing the egg with an altered sperm cell, then this will probably lead to spontaneous abortion due to mortal defects, which will allow you to try again next month, or two months after.

So you see, a lot has to happen before you would actually have children with congenital defects due to testicular radiotherapy.