You may have seen the headline, or maybe you’re one of the 1.7 million-and-counting people who clicked on the Reddit post that started it all.
Here’s the story: A guy found his ex-GF’s pregnancy test in his medicine cabinet, took the test for laughs, and found out he was pregnant.
At least that’s what the test said. It seemed funny, so a friend of his posted a cartoon of the story on Reddit. Comments to the post noted that pregnancy tests identify hCG, a hormone produced during pregnancy — and in testicular cancer.
Sure enough, the man found he had a small tumor in one of his testicles. A follow-up post says it was a very early, curable tumor.
Does all this make sense? I asked Bruni Nazario, MD, WebMD’s resident endocrinologist.
“Yes, this is possible. Testicular cancer makes hormones and one hormone produced is hCG, the same hormone produced by embryonic tissue during pregnancy. This cancer also produces AFP, a fetal protein measured during pregnancy.” Read full article.
