Doctors spot screaming man in ultrasound of tumour

They call it the face of testicular pain.

Doctors at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., did a double take when they spotted what looks like the face of a screaming man in an ultrasound of a testicular tumour.

The startling image jumped out at them two years ago while scrolling through scans of a 45-year-old patient suffering from severe testicular pain, Dr. Naji Touma said Wednesday.

“The fact that it’s a testicle to begin with, and you have that face screaming out — the face is obvious, you don’t even have to do a lot of squinting or imagining to see it,” he said.

“I think people find it amusing for that reason.”

What was meant as an inside joke between doctors went viral after it was published in a recent issue of the journal “Urology.” The journal has a monthly feature that showcases photos of interesting cases.

The image has been compared to sightings of the Virgin Mary or Jesus on toast or grilled cheese sandwiches — a similarity that hasn’t escaped Touma.

“That’s sort of what came to our head, how people see things in different … either in a piece of toast or something like that,” he said.

In the journal, the doctors said they debated “whether the image could have been a sign from a deity” — notably the Egyptian god of virility — but quickly dismiss it as a coincidence.

In the end, the patient decided to have the testicle removed and the tumour turned out to be benign.

Odds are he’s still in the dark about the strange image in his ultrasound, Touma said.

At the time, it seemed inappropriate to tell the man, who was dealing with a potential cancer diagnosis, about the anomaly.

“It was a different situation, when you’re talking to a patient and he has this sort of concern on his mind,” said Touma. “We didn’t really joke too much about it.”

By the time the doctors decided to submit the photo for publication, the patient had stopped coming for appointments, he said.