Orchiopexy
A Cause of Benign Testicular Lobulation
Fatih Kantarci, MD, Ismail Mihmanli, MD, Mehmet Halit Yilmaz, MD,
Serap Cetinkaya, MD, Dogan Selcuk, MD, Gunduz Ogut, MD
esticular cancer accounts for only 1% of all malignancies in men, and it is more
common in black men.
1
Patients with cryptorchidism are 2.5 to 8 times more
likely to have testicular cancer.
2
Testicular cancer commonly presents as a
painless mass or vague discomfort in the scrotum. It is essential to obtain the
patient’s medical history to narrow the possible diagnoses. The principal role of sonog-
raphy in the diagnosis of testicular cancer is to help distinguish intratesticular from
extratesticular lesions because most extratesticular masses are benign, and intratestic-
ular masses are more likely to be malignant.
3,4
Here we report a case of a patient who had previously undergone orchiopexy in
which sonographic examination revealed testicular atrophy and lobulation. To our
knowledge, this is the first case report that describes orchiopexy as a cause of testicu-
lar lobulation.
Received August 12, 2003, from the Department of
Radiology, Istanbul University, Cerrahpasa Medical
Faculty, Istanbul, Turkey. Revision requested
August 25, 2003. Revised manuscript accepted for
publication September 9, 2003.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to
Ismail Mihmanli, MD, Department of Radiology,
Istanbul University, Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty,
34300 Istanbul, Turkey.
E-mail: mihmanli@yahoo.com.
Case Report
A 30-year-old man sought treatment for infertility after 2
years of normal sexual intercourse. Physical examination
revealed bilateral testis in the scrotal sac. The left testis
was smaller than the right testis, and it was normal in
consistency on palpation. A painless contour abnormali-
ty was palpated on the superior aspect of the left testis.
The right testis was normal in size, and physical exami-
nation of the right side was unremarkable. The patient
had undergone orchiopexy for a left undescended testis
when he was 9 years old.
Sonographic examination of both testes was per-
formed with a high-frequency sonography unit
(Sonoline Elegra; Siemens Medical Solutions, Issaquah,
WA) equipped with a 4- to 7-MHz linear transducer.
Sonographic examination confirmed that the left testis
was smaller than the right (left, 28 × 11 × 19 mm, 3.1 cm
3
;
right, 42 × 19 × 21 mm, 9.2 cm
3
). The testis was seen to
attach to the anterior border of the scrotal sac. There was
a lobulation on its superior aspect (Fig. 1). The left testis
© 2003 by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine • J Ultrasound Med 22:1417–1419, 2003 • 0278-4297/03/$3.50
T
Case Report