Publication:

Is inguinal hernia repair safe for testicular atrophy? Our 10 year results

Background We aimed to determine the incidence and predictors of testicular atrophy (TA) in patients undergoing inguinal hernia repair at our hospital.

Methods The total patient number is 578.The patients were divided Group-1 (developed testicular atrophy) and Group-2 (did not develop testicular atrophy). The testicles were evaluated with Scrotal Color Doppler Ultrasonography (SCDU) in preoperative and postoperative third month.

Results Median age in the Group - 1 and Group - 2 respectively is 64,0±12,3 (47-81) and 48,9±17,4 (18-89) (p=0.037). TA developed in 5.01% (29/578) of the patients. We determined that TA developed more often in the patients who are over the age of 40 (p=0.007), in secondary cases (p<0.001), in  open repair (p<0.001), those who do not use perioperative narcotic and Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) (p<0.001), those who use perioperative antispasmodic drugs (p=0.017), those having a rheumatic disease(RD) and  diabetes mellitus(DM) (p<0.001).Results of multivariate analysis, testicular atrophy development increases when perioperative NSAID is not used ( OR:13.24; 95% CI:4.19-41.87; p<0.001) , perioperative narcotic is not applied (OR:13.91; 95% CI:4.35-44.55; p<0.001) and RD exists (OR:0.10; 95%CI:0.03-0.35; p<0.001).

Conclusions Advanced age, DM and rheumatic disease, not using perioperative NSAIDs, narcotic drugs and antispasmodic drugs increases the risk of testicular atrophy.