S. Pyorala et al., A REVIEW AND METAANALYSIS OF HORMONAL TREATMENT OF CRYPTORCHIDISM, The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism, 80(9), 1995, pp. 2795-2799
To assess the effect of LH-releasing hormone (LHRH) and hCG in the tre
atment of cryptorchidism, 33 articles published in English between 195
8-1990 were analyzed. Altogether, 3282 boys with 4524 undescended test
es were included in the analysis; 872 boys with 1174 undescended teste
s were treated in randomized trials. The metaanalysis showed LHRH to b
e more effective than placebo; the risk ratio was 3.21 [95% confidence
interval (CI) of 1.83-5.64] and 2.57 (95% CI, 1.39-4.74) in trials ex
cluding retractile testes, respectively. In the combined randomized tr
ials, the success rate with LHRH was 21% (95% CI, 18-24%), that with h
CG was 19% (95% CI, 13-25%), and that with placebo was 4% (95% CI, 2-6
%). The effect of the hormonal treatment was overestimated in nonrando
mized trials. In conclusion, LHRH is effective in the treatment of cry
ptorchidism, and hCG is more effective than placebo, but data about th
e effect are scanty.