elevated hCG levels in men - Did you know? I did not.

C&K*s Mommie wrote: Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG): used to screen for choriocarcinoma (a rare cancer of the uterus) in women who are at high risk for the disease, and to monitor the treatment of trophoblastic disease (a rare cancer that develops from an abnormally fertilized egg). Elevated HCG levels may also indicate the presence of cancers of the testis, ovary, liver, stomach, pancreas, and lung.

As a part of some of our labs for one of my classes we will be required to test out by doing a PG test next week. Four of the 10 of us women have had children already, and are done- so there should be no suprises of 2 pink lines. We are down to 1 male, so some of us were curious as to how this male would be able to be checked off with a PG test, knowing that he could not be pg anyways. It was then that most (well all) of us learned that elevated hCG hormone levels can still be present in men , not just women to indicate pregnancy. The above statement is the reason why.

I did not know this, did you? I associated it strictly with pregnancy.

holley79 replied: I guess it's no different then my mom's testostone level being higher then a man's when she had that tumor. That will be interesting to see the outcome. What you going to do if you end up with double pinks. Not that I'm wishing anything on you.

mom2my2cuties replied: I have heard of this before - It was on some documentary. It's a form of Symphathetic pregnancy in which the symptoms are very severe...Even to the point of lactation, enlarged breasts, and labor pains....

I REALLY wish my husband would have gotten it

Kaitlin'smom replied: so then could a man test positive on a home PG test? how weird that would be to see.

C&K*s Mommie replied: if I had seen 2 pink lines with a man, before I found that out last night I would have been like this !

redchief replied: So if I take a pg test and it's positive, I either have the big C or I'm preggo? I think I'd almost hope I was pregnant.

MyBrownEyedBoy replied: Yes, I did know this. Also, if you ever had the AFP Triple Screen test prenatally, men can have elevated AFP levels with certain types of cancer. In fact, AFP (stands for Alpha Feto-Protein) is used as a marker for tracking how well chemotherapy is working.

I found this on WebMD, it is along the same lines as Nichole's quote about HCG.

A&A'smommy replied: wow I did not know that!! Very interesting thank you for sharing i learned something knew!!!

MoonMama replied: Wow I didn't know that, you learn something new everyday. TFS with us.

my2monkeyboys replied:
Yeah, atleast you could become an overnight gazillionaire! Of course, it'd be a c-section baby undoubtedly!

julesmom replied: I had bloodwork done recently. The tech marked something wrong and they tested the blood as a pregnancy test. I got the results and according to the numbers, I am pregnant, which I am not!

How elevated do the numbers have to be for cancer? I am always nervous of that as there is/was alot of cancer in my family.

If the numbers are elevated, what else could it mean?

NOTE: I am definitely not pregnant either! I haven't seen the doc. since I got the copy and saw they did this test. I had a couple of tests done and this one was done in error. I hadn't even thought it might be something.

C&K*s Mommie replied: Thank you Kelly for sharing that information. It helps to explain more.



I would schedule a time to discuss the results with your doctor if it has not been scheduled already. He would be the best to give you the final word on what they mean, I do not think too many of us are qualified to decipher the results of something that we do not have more history on. I also would not want you to jump the gun and think that you have cancer, it would be best to talk to your physician.