What are the odds?

There are lots of benefits to having the Internet available when you have cancer.  You have access to all sorts of information.  Of course one of the downsides is that you have access to all sorts of information.  So... while waiting for the test results and having a weekend to mull it over you end up with postings like this one.

There are between 8,000 - 9,000 cases of testicular cancer a year in the US.  It appears that roughly 1 in 18,000 men a year will be diagnosed.  It is a pretty rare cancer but fortunately the cure rate is pretty high even if it has spread.  Interesting stuff.  However when taken into account with my prior cancer it gets even more unique.

Roughly 2,000 people a year are diagnosed with nasopharyngel carcinoma in the US.  Assuming half of those are men that means about 1,000 men a year are diagnosed with this cancer.  The 5 year survival rate is around 70%.   It also primarily affects older people. To get 18,000 men that have had nasophyrangeal carcinoma in the US it would take over 20 years worth of cases.  So where am I going with this?  There are probably less than 18,000 men in the US today that have had nasophyrengeal carcinoma.  If there were 18,000 men that have had nasophyrengeal carcinoma in the US this year the odds are that just one of them would come down with testicular cancer.

So basically the likely hood of having had nasopharengeal carcinoma and getting diagnosed with testicular cancer this year is one, as in one person, not one percent.  Talk about being a member of a select group. :-)