title: Intra-abdominal testis: histological alterations and significance of biopsy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Intra-abdominal testes represent only 5% of undescended testes. Review of the literature reveals that few data exist on the histological analysis of intra-abdominal testes. We studied histological alterations in intra-abdominal testes in relation to patient age at orchiopexy.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 57 boys underwent laparoscopy for impalpable undescended testes between October 2002 and June 2005. Testicular biopsies were taken from intra-abdominal testes, fixed in 3% glutaraldehyde, embedded in Epon, sectioned at 1 micron thickness and stained with toluidine blue. Histomorphometric analysis was performed by light microscopy. Effect of age at operation on histological evaluation of abdominal testes was also studied.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Testicular biopsies from 29 patients with intra-abdominal testes showed the histological alterations of decreased mean diameter of seminiferous tubules, germinal cell depletion (55%) and presence of microliths (6.9%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As age at orchiopexy increases, deviation from the norm is more evident and absence of germ cells on biopsy becomes more pronounced, reaching a rate of 93% after age 3 years. Further studies on orchiopexy with or without biopsy in the first few months of life would likely improve our understanding and treatment of cryptorchidism.
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Surgery Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. amrabdelhamid@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Amr Abdelhamid
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: AbouZeid
authors.forename: Manal Hasan
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Mousa
authors.forename: Hesham A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Soliman
authors.forename: Alaa Fayez
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Hamza
authors.forename: Sameh Abdel
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Hay
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D001706:Biopsy; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003456:Cryptorchidism / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D010535:Laparoscopy; D008297:Male; D013521:Urologic Surgical Procedures, Male