Microsurgery for intra-abdominal testicular retention

Objectives: In cases of high intra-abdominal retention of the testis a stan dard technique of cryptorchidy treatment will not be able to bring down the testis into the scrotum. In this study we wanted to evaluate the feasibili ty and reliability of the technical aspects of testicular autotransplantati ons in children under the age of 5 years. Study design: A series of 25 micr osurgical autotranslantations of testes performed on 17 boys since July 198 4 are reviewed. Emphasis was placed on the microvascular transplantation te chnique, the age of the patient and the long term viability of the autotran splants. An end-to-end microvascular anastomosis between the deep inferior epigastric artery and the testicular artery was performed in an end-to-end way using matress stitches to accommodate the difference in diameter betwee n the donor and recipient vessels. Also the testicular veins were anastomos ed to the deep inferior epigastric veins. Results: Of the 25 transplantatio ns (96%) were successful after a mean follow up of 24 months, the one failu re was ascribed arterial thrombosis. Conclusion: Our results show a 96% sur vival of the transplanted testes using the end-to-end vascular anastomosis as described here. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserv ed.