Melbourne forward Jesse Hogan will have surgery on Tuesday after being diagnosed with a form of testicular cancer last week, when a small tumour was discovered during an ultrasound.
The diagnosis comes just weeks after the player’s father, Tony, died from the disease.
A CT scan showed the cancer had not spread to the rest of Jesse Hogan’s body and his club said he was expected to make a full recovery and return to football this year.
“It’s important to reinforce that this was an extremely early detection and the seminoma is in its earliest stage of growth,” a club statement read.
Hogan missed last weekend’s win over Adelaide, although at the time the exact nature of his illness was not publicly known.
Hogan will not require chemotherapy or radiotherapy following the surgery, Melbourne’s club doctor Zeeshan Arain said, but he is facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
“At this stage surgery and active surveillance is all he needs so that’s really good news for him,” Arain said. “Purely from a physical point of view of the operation and recovery, we expect he could return to play somewhere between four to eight weeks but obviously we’ll have to look back at how he’s had a disrupted year as well from a conditioning point of view and also his psychological state.”
Arain said there was no genetic link between Hogan’s illness and that of his late father.
Demons general manager of football Josh Mahoney said: “The club’s collective heart is with Jesse Hogan. This is clearly a very difficult time for Jesse and his health and wellbeing is the No 1 priority for us.
“We informed the players of this on Friday and respected Jesse’s wishes to keep this information private up until this point. Jesse will obviously miss a period of football due to this surgery but we expect him to make a full recovery and return to AFL in the short-term future.”
