Results of early treatment of cryptorchidism with human chorionic gonadotropin.

One hundred and fifty-three children with common cryptorchidism, 109 unilateral and 44 bilateral, excluding those with associated malformations or abnormalities, were treated at age 6 to 59 months with human chorionic gonadotropin given as nine intramuscular injections on alternate days. Treatment before age 3 years resulted in complete failure in 81%. At 3 to 4 years of age treatment resulted in failure in 55%, but 19% of the patients showed complete testicular descent and 26% showed partial descent. The percent of failures was increased when the dose of human chorionic gonadotropin was lower than 1,000 IU/m2 injection and when the cryptorchid testis was very high. No correlation was found between endocrine data and the clinical results. The plasma testosterone concentration after the third injection of human chorionic gonadotropin was not significantly different in successfully and unsuccessfully treated patients. However, testosterone levels were significantly lower in patients treated at 36 to 59 months of age than in those treated at an earlier age, in contrast to the significantly better clinical results obtained in the older group. Thus human chorionic gonadotropin is not a valuable means of obtaining descent of undescended testes before age 3 years and is of limited usefulness at age 3 to 4 years.