ABSTRACT
Unilateral spermatic cord torsion has been shown to cause damage to the contralateral testis in humans and animal models. In the present paper, we have examined contralateral testes of prepubertal Sprague-Dawley rats 14 days after 720 torsion to determine the effect of scrotal surgery versus abdominal approach and to determine the effect of therapeutic orchiectomy versus detorsion. Torsion periods were 2. 6 and 24 hours. Histologic examinations of contralateral testis at the end of the experiment demonstrate that all rats of both the orchiectomy and detorsion groups had a significantly reduced mean seminiferous tubular diameter compared to controls (p<0.001). But the groups of abdominal approach had a smaller reduced mean seminiferous tubu1ar diameter than the groups of scrotal approach. These results indicate that these contralateral alterations seem to be caused by generalized perineal inflammatory responses as well as immunologic responses.