Fact check: At-home pregnancy tests aren't a reliable screening tool for testicular cancer

Miriam Fauzia, USA TODAY
·6 min read

The claim: A positive home pregnancy test in men shows hormones 'linked to testicular cancer'

A viral Facebook video is urging men to get tested for a rare type of cancer using a simple, over-the-counter tool: a home pregnancy test.

"Pregnancy tests aren't just for women. A (positive result) for men shows high hormone levels linked to testicular cancer. Catching it early could be what saves your life," reads cue cards presented in the three-minute video shared to Facebook on Sept. 15.

The three men in the video then show the results of their own pregnancy tests sitting in cups in front of them. Two of the men test negative, but the third gets a positive result and flips the white stick's display to show the camera.

Captions then appear and encourage viewers, "Tell all the men in your life!"

The video garnered over 330,000 views and nearly 1,500 likes, shares and comments in the span of a week, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool.

Diagnosing testicular cancer with home pregnancy tests dates back to the mid-1980s, and the idea gained popularity online in 2012 with a Reddit post about a man who discovered he did have the disease after taking a test as a joke.

Since then, there have been studies and case reports of home pregnancy tests being used to screen for testicular cancer. But using the at-home test is not a reliable means of diagnosis for a variety of reasons and can actually be dangerous, experts say.

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USA TODAY has reached out to the Facebook poster for comment.

What is testicular cancer?

The testes are a pair of oval-shaped organs that make up the male reproductive system and have two primary functions – to make sperm and hormones such as testosterone.

Around one in every 270 males will develop testicular cancer, with occurrence more common in young adult men, particularly between ages 30 to 39. Fortunately, the survival rate is pretty high, with 95% of men diagnosed living at least five years after diagnosis.

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While testicular cancer can strike at any age, there are a few risk factors that make developing the disease more likely such as a history of HIV infection, a family history of testicular cancer or having an undescended testicle (when one or both testes fail to fall into the scrotum before birth).

In the U.S., white men are about four to five times more likely to develop testicular cancer than Hispanic, Black, Asian-American or American-Indian men, although it's not entirely clear why.

Home pregnancy tests can give false positives, false negatives

The Facebook video is right about one thing: the hormone made by women during pregnancy and detected by pregnancy tests, human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), is secreted by some testicular cancer cells. But not all of them.

Only about 15% of tumors that arise from the sperm-producing cells of the testicle, called seminomas, and 20% to 40% that arise from other cell types will secrete HCG, Dr. Phillip Pierorazio, associate professor of urology and oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, wrote in a 2016 article for The Good Man Project.

"Even in cases of advanced (metastatic spread to lymph nodes or other sites) testicular cancer, only about 50% of tumors... will secrete HCG," he said.

And the amount of the hormone produced may evade detection by a simple pregnancy test.

"HCG levels need to be relatively high to be detected by the over-the-counter urine tests," Pierorazio wrote. "Of the minority of testicular cancer patients whose tumors secrete HCG, many patients will have HCG levels beneath the detecting capability of a home pregnancy test."

A testicular tumor can instead produce elevated levels of proteins like alpha-fetoprotein or lactate dehydrogenase, which aren't detected by the at-home test.

"Someone could get false reassurance from a negative test or could have elevated HCG levels for another reason altogether," said Dr. Christoper Wood, professor of urology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in a blog post published by the center in March.

Some other reasons for false positives on a home pregnancy test can include protein or blood present in urine and certain types of prescription drugs like methadone, anticonvulsants (to treat seizures) and medications for anxiety.

Other types of cancers, such as stomach and lung, have also been reported to cause false-positive pregnancy tests in cancer patients.

"There's no advantage to relying on a pregnancy test to self-diagnose testicular cancer. It's even dangerous to do so," Wood said. "Testicular cancer manifests itself most commonly as a painless scrotal mass, so check yourself, know your body and see a doctor if you detect anything suspicious."

Our rating: Partly false

Based on our research, we rate PARTLY FALSE the claim that a positive home pregnancy test in men shows hormones "linked to testicular cancer." HCG, the hormone detected by a pregnancy test, can be elevated in cases of testicular cancer. But experts say it's also possible to have the disease without the hormones that would generate a positive test. And a pregnancy test can return a positive result due to cancers other than testicular cancer, such as stomach or lung, or because of certain medication use. Doctors warn against relying on pregnancy tests as a diagnostic tool.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Pregnancy test not reliable screen for testicular cancer

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