Late Gonadal Function and Autoimmunization in Familial Testicular Torsion

Abstract

Testicular torsion, one of the most common pediatric urological emergencies, is rarely familial. This study deals with the sixth recorded family with familial testicular torsion and the effects on the spermatogenesis and the appearance of testicular autoantibodies in three affected subjects (two brothers, aged 18 and 15 years, and their father, aged 48 years). The father and one of the brothers, who had peripubertal unilateral testicular torsion, presented normal fertility and oligozoospermia, respectively. The other brother, who had a history of bilateral testicular torsion, did not present pubertal development until he was 18 years old and he needed substitutive testosterone therapy. Sperm autoantibody titer increased only in the two cases with unilateral torsion and remained unmodified at a 5-year follow-up. The results indicate that testicular torsion can cause variable degrees of spermatogenesis impairment and induce development of autoantibodies against spermatozoa and gonadal antigens. The persistence of fertility in the father and the progressive spermatogenesis recovery in one of the affected sons suggest that the damaging effects of these autoantibodies deserve further investigation.

Familial torsion of the testis

“…Familial testicular torsion is very rarely reported and this was confirmed when we carried out a Pubmed literature search. Only six cases have been described so far in the literature [2,3]. We report the seventh case of familial testicular torsion.…”

Effects of oral zinc administration on long-term ipsilateral and contralateral testes damage after experimental testis ischaemia-reperfusion

“…Hadziselimovic, Geneto, and Emmons () asserted that the increased apoptosis following one‐sided torsion was one of the most important factors affecting infertility. In another study, researchers defended the idea that the antibodies that were induced by determined autoimmunisation could have caused one‐sided torsion in the opposite testis in six individuals with familial testicular torsion (Sinisi et al., ). Among all theories about torsion and detorsion injury, the strongest one is I/R damage and the damage made by emergent free oxygen radicals on both testes (Filho et al., ; Saba et al., ; Taskinen et al., ).…”

Torzija testisa - specifičnosti bimodalne kliničke prezentacije, dijagnostike i lečenja

“…U proseku 3,8 na 100 000 muškaraca mlađih od 18 godina na godišnjem nivou ima TT, a bilateralna je u 40% slučajeva [3]. Torzija testisa je uzrok u 26% akutnog skrotuma i u 42% se završi orhiektomijom [3,6,7]. 10% dečaka sa potvrđenom TT ima pozitivnu porodičnu anamnezu [6].…”

“…Torzija testisa je uzrok u 26% akutnog skrotuma i u 42% se završi orhiektomijom [3,6,7]. 10% dečaka sa potvrđenom TT ima pozitivnu porodičnu anamnezu [6]. Sezonska incidencija torzije testisa se kreće od 36,2% u prolec e, 31% u zimu, 19% u leto do 13,8% u jesen.…”