Testicular cancer has been and remains to be a disease that occurs more in white men ages 15 to 39, but a new study reveals that the disease is occurring more often than before in a group that has historically received less attention: Hispanics.

Dr. Rebecca H. Johnson and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle compared testicular germ cell tumor trends among Hispanic and non-Hispanic white males from 1992 to 2010. They analyzed data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database was maintained by the National Cancer Institute for two periods, 1992 to 2010 and 2000 to 2010, sampling 15 and 28 percent of the U.S. population, respectively.

Johnson and colleagues found that while rates really did not change for white men over the study period 2000 through 2010, the incidence rate for Hispanics increased 3.8 percent per year during this decade. The rates increased for all age groups up to age 39. In contrast, white men at most ages showed no rate increase, with the exception of a small increase among white men in their 20s and early 30s.

Overall, the rate for all cancers in Hispanics did not increase over the years studied. The cause of the increase in testicular cancer rates is unknown. The study design used with SEER data cannot provide causal information. Regardless, the results suggest that if the rates of testicular cancer among Hispanics continues to increase as it has, Hispanics will overtake non-Hispanic whites in overall testicular cancer rate.

“All male adolescent and young adult patients should be made aware by their primary care provider about the risks of testicular cancer, regardless of ethnicity,” said Dr. Nicholas G. Cost to Reuters Health. Cost is a testicular cancer researcher at the University of Texas but was not involved with the study.

The study is described in a report published this week in the journal Cancer.