Testicular cancer rates are increasing more than 3% per year among young Hispanic men, at a time when rates among non-Hispanic white men are remaining steady, according to a new study

Testicular tumors are already among the most common cancers for men between 15 and 39 years old. But they are also among the most curable, with more than 90% of men living at least 10 years after diagnosis. The number of new testicular cancers diagnosed each year ranges from 1.4 for every 100,000 black men to 6.6 per 100,000 white men, with rates for Hispanic men falling in between, at about 4.7 cases per 100,000 men per year. Dr. Rebecca H. Johnson and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle used a large database from the National Cancer Institute to examine trends in testicular cancer rates in Hispanic and non-Hispanic adolescents and young adults over the past two decades. What they found surprised them: while testicular cancer rates increased by about 3.8% per year among Hispanic men over the most recent 10 years, rates didn’t change at all among non-Hispanic white men. These rates increased in all age groups and across all stages of cancer among Hispanic men up to age 39. But only the group of non-Hispanic white men in their 20s and early 30s showed a significant but much smaller increase. This does not just reflect a general increase in cancer rates among Hispanic adolescents and young adults: the overall cancer rate neither increased nor decreased between 1992 and 2010. Researchers say that they don’t know why testicular cancer rates are increasing among Hispanic adolescents and young adults, but they are concerned that the rate of testicular germ cell tumors among Hispanics may overtake that among non-Hispanic whites if the observed trends persist.