Genetic link to testicular cancer established

About 2,000 cases of testicular cancer are diagnosed each year in the UK.

The disease claims about 70 lives, making it one of the most treatable cancers following advances in care in recent years, but is the most common cancer in men aged 15-45 and treatments can have significant side effects.

Doctors have already established the disease has a strong genetic component.

Men who have brothers affected by the condition have an eight-10-fold increased risk - much higher than other inherited cancers where the risk is only two-fold.

Now a team of researchers from across the country, including experts from Leeds University, has uncovered three new genetic risk factors for the illness.

The findings, published yesterday in Nature Genetics, brings the number of regions on the human genome linked to increased risk of the cancer to six.

Scientists scanned the genes of almost 1,000 men with the condition and 5,000 without to pinpoint the new areas.

One of the genes has also been linked to lung, bladder, cervical, pancreatic, skin and prostate cancers

Another is pivotal in sex determination and has been implicated in the development of testicular cancer in mice.