Easy New Screen for Testicular Cancer ; Health in Brief Good Health

A BREAKTHROUGH has been made in detecting early signs of testicular cancer.

Researchers in Denmark found the disease can be diagnosed by tests on semen samples. It is hoped this will lead to a simple screening test being developed.

Testicular cancer affects around 2,000 men in Britain each year and is the most common form of cancer for those aged 20 to 39.

More than 90 per cent of cases are curable if caught early, but the cancer is difficult to detect before it has started to spread, so patients often have to undergo surgery, plus chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

The team analysed 12 samples, some from cancer patients, others from healthy young men. One man was found to have a specific protein found in patients with testicular cancer.

Further examination confirmed he had the early stages of the disease.

A glass of red wine lowers cholesterol

SICILIAN red wine could be a key ingredient of the healthy Mediterranean diet.

Research shows that when men and women who rarely or never drank red wine were given a glass or two a day, they were significantly healthier a month later.

Their cholesterol was lower, they had less inflammation and fewer risk factors for heart disease, and their levels of antioxidants had increased significantly.

‘Our results suggest moderate consumption of red wine is a positive component of the Mediterranean diet,’ say doctors from the University of Palermo.

In the research, 50 people were given 250ml of red wine a day with a meal for four weeks.

At the beginning and end of the research period, blood tests were carried out to measure cholesterol, inflammatory cells and other compounds which are involved in heart disease.

Surgery hope for wrist-pain patients

SURGERY could be three times more effective than steroids at treating numbness and tingling in the hands and wrist, research suggests.

Carpal tunnel syndrome, which is caused by pressure on a nerve in the wrist, can be so severe it stops people being able to work.

But in a trial in Hong Kong, 25 patients had surgery to relieve pressure on the nerve.

Another 25 had a steroid injection.

Five months later, the patients who had undergone surgery showed an improvement in symptoms three times greater than the patients who had received only the injection.