Shear Wave Elastography for Assessment of Testicular Stiffness in Patients with Varicocele

Abstract

Background: The purpose of this study was to use ultrasonography and shear wave elastography (SWE) to assess stiffness and volume of testes in adult patients with varicocele, to compare the results with those of normal contralateral testes of the same patients and healthy testes of control subjects. Methods: In this IRB-approved prospective comparative study, 58 patients with varicocele (116 testes) and 58 control patients (116 testes) were enrolled. A total of 66 testes with varicocele were added to group A, their 50 healthful contralateral testes were added to Group B, and 116 healthy control testes were added to Group C. Analysis of variance (one way ANOVA) test was used to compare groups and Student's t -test was used for their binary comparisons. The correlation between the testicular stiffness and volume was studied using Pearson's correlation test. Results: There was not a significant difference in the mean SWE values between three groups and also, between two-group comparisons ( P < 0.05). In the mean testicular volumes, a significant difference was observed between Groups A and C ( P = 0.028). Conversely, there was not a significant difference between Groups A and B ( P = 0.907) or Groups B and C ( P = 0.094). A meaningful correlation between testicular stiffness and volume was not detected for each group. Conclusion: A significant correlation was not determined between SWE values and varicocele, and also between SWE values and testicular volume. We advise that more studies with larger populations of patients are required to verify the effectiveness of SWE in predicting testicular parenchymal damage.

Nomograms for Predicting Postoperative Sperm Improvements in Varicocele Patients

“…According to current literature, it is clear that age and BMI [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , varicocele grade [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] and testicular elasticity modulus [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] have a definite impact on male fertility and sperm quality. Interestingly, the multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that BMI had no predictive value for the improvement of sperm parameters after surgery.…”

Comparison of testicular stiffness values obtained by ultrasound shear-wave elastography and magnetic resonance elastography in normal healthy volunteers

“…Elastographic examinations were conducted with minimal compression for at least 5 seconds to reduce motion artifacts. ROIs (regions of interest) were placed to measure a round area of 0.1 cm2 in the central part of the normal testicular parenchyma, as it is known that measurements become more standardized in this region, and the area becomes smaller in SWE [4,5].…”

Assessment of testicular stiffness in fertile dogs with shear wave elastography techniques: a pilot study

“…In human medicine, testicular stiffness has been investigated by elastography in both physiological (10) and pathological testes (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). Elastography has been applied for the evaluation of undescended testes, infertility, testicular torsion, tumors, microlithiasis, varicocele and segmental testicular infarction (18), and has shown efficacy in the diagnosis of varicocele (19) and in discriminating focal non-neoplastic lesions from neoplasms, and benign from malignant testicular tumors (20).…”