Unilateral testicular disease: effect on the contralateral testis (morphometric study).

Unilateral testicular disease has been reported to damage the contralateral testis. In order to find out whether this detrimental influence is permanent in nature or can be avoided by therapeutic measures, and furthermore to quantify the damage, the following experiments were performed. Seventy-five rats were classified into the following five groups: I) testicular torsion persisting for eight hours; II) ipsilateral semicastration after torsion persisting for eight hours; III) semicastration; IV) sham operation as control; V) immunosuppression with azathioprine after torsion persisting for eight hours. The contralateral testes were removed two months later and perfused with fixative via the testicular artery. Stereologic techniques were employed to obtain quantitative morphologic data. Serum hormone levels were determined. The volume density of the contralateral germinal epithelium was not decreased two months after torsion for eight hours, torsion following by semicastration or torsion followed by immunosuppression. The same was true of the total volume of germinal epithelium per rat testis. The hormone levels remained essentially unchanged.