THE PHARMACOLOGICAL EFFECT OF THE GONADOTROPIN-RELEASING-HORMONE ON EXPERIMENTAL CRYPTORCHIDISM IN RATS

Cryptorchidism is the most frequent congenital disturbance in males re quiring both medical and surgical interventions. The involved testicle shows severe pathological changes. In an effort to test new medical t reatments, we established a rat model for induced cryptorchidism using two estradiol treatment regimens and evaluated the effects of GnRH an d an analogue D-Phe-GnRH on rate of testicular descent and on improvem ent of abnormal testicular histology. We found that the duration of es tradiol treatment and not the total dose was related to delayed recove ry from testicular descent. No significant effect of GnRH on testicula r descent was observed. D-Phe-GnRH significantly improved the rate of testicular descent in rats treated 40 days with estradiol, but not in those treated 30 days with estradiol. The histologic examination of es tradiol-induced undescended testes revealed severe morphological chang es with a low number of germ cells, infiltration with lymphocytes, fib rosis and smaller diameter of seminiferous tubules. These changes were not improved with GnRH. D-Phe-GnRH was able to correct some of the hi stologic changes of estradiol-induced cryptorchidism. We established a n animal model for testing of medical treatments for cryptorchidism. O ur study may be indicative of a new treatment strategy using D-Phe-GnR H in the non-surgical treatment of cryptorchidism in human.