The observed changes in plasma GDF-15 protein levels in testicular cancer patients induced by cisplatin- and bleomycin-containing chemotherapy indicate that this informative pre-clinical approach can be translated to a clinical setting, and that GDF-15 may be a potential biomarker of interest that is mechanistically involved in chemotherapy-related healthy tissue damage such as endothelial damage. The gene discussed is GDF15; the disease is testicular cancer.