IS ONE TESTICULAR SPECIMEN SUFFICIENT FOR QUANTITATIVE-EVALUATION OF SPERMATOGENESIS

Objective: To investigate whether quantitative analysis performed on o ne testicular specimen is adequate for quantitative evaluation of sper matogenic process. Design: Comparison of quantitative analysis of sper matogenic cell types in testicular cytologic aspirates of various site s of each testis. Setting: In each aspirate, a total of 500 Sertoli ce lls and cells at each of the spermatogenic stages were identified, cou nted, and grouped according to cell type. A quantitative cell type ind ex was calculated for each type of cell in each aspirate. Mean cell ty pe indexes then were calculated for each of the cell types in the thre e aspirates of each patient, and variations of a given sample from its mean were compared. Patients: Azoospermic or severely oligospermic in fertile men. Interventions: Fine needle aspiration performed on the up per, middle, and lower poles of each testis. Results: Each of the aspi rates showed wide deviations from the mean of the three aspirates for that patient. The deviation ranges of the cell type indexes of each of the spermatogenic stages were as follows: spermatogonia, 0.8% to 200% ; spermatocytes, 1.4% to 94.3%; spermatids, 2.9% to 200%; and spermato zoa, 0.7% to 128%. In the majority of the patients, at least one of th e three aspirates showed a cell type index score that was statisticall y different from the others. Conclusions: These results suggest that m ore than one testicular specimen is needed to evaluate quantitatively the spermatogenic process.