Testicular Cancer Research

Testicular cancer is highly curable, and thankfully only a minority of patients will die from the disease. However, there is still much research to be done. This page explains our research work on testicular cancer.

The Tissue Bank has various testicular cancer holdings, including thousands of samples from the British Testicular Tumour Panel and their local holdings.

Professor Berney, who heads the Robert Lane Tissue Bank, does not know of any competing resources which offer such an extensive pathological collection of genito-urinary cancers in the world.

He has identified the following priorities for research which often uses or builds on the resources held in the Robert Lane Tissue Bank:

  1. Understanding why some patients develop recurring testicular cancer. This work involves collecting samples of advanced disease from clinical trials. It is possible that a large study may expose rare subtypes, which could explain why testicular cancer can behave differently in different patients.
  2. Once there is a better understanding of why some patients have recurring testicular cancer, developing personalised treatment and different drug treatments.
  3. Papers are being released on risk factors and rarer testicular tumours. This will include work on somatic transformations in testicular tumours and non-germ cell tumours.
  4. Professor Berney is involved in a project in Denmark to research additional treatment for testicular tumours. It is hoped initial results will be available in 2022/23.
  5. Proposals are underway for a collaboration between Medical Research Council, Institute of Cancer Research and the Robert Lane Tissue Bank. The research would look at samples to understand whether changes to genomes affect treatment outcomes. This may help researchers to understand chemotherapy resistance and which patients are more likely to respond to which therapy. Dr Prabhakar Rajan and his team at the Robert Lane Tissue Bank will make recommendations following this research.