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Testicular Cancer among US Servicemen

• Though testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT) are relatively infrequent in the population as a whole, TGCT is the most common cancer among U.S. males in the age group 25-34 years.
• The Servicemen’s Testicular tumor Environmental Endocrine Determinants Study (STEED) looked at TGCT among members of the U.S. armed forces. The study included men who donated a blood sample to the Department of Defense Serum Repository (DoDSR) between the years 1989 and 2002. Mothers of all participants were also invited.
• The study enrolled over 1,500 servicement (both cases and controls) and over 1,000 mothers of the case and control men.
• Physical activity, medical history, medication history, and other risk factors of the participants were analyzed in relation to TGCT association.
• The analysis of the sons' responses found no relationship between childhood physical activity and TGCT, while the mothers' analysis found an inverse association, which was solely due to nonseminoma. Results also suggest that increased height is a risk factor for TGCT, though body mass index is not.