evolving morphological changes of testis in udt patients

introduction: undescended testis is a common problem in children. cryptorchid testis is frequently accompanied by gross morphologic changes with regard to the size and shape of the testis, various degree of detachment between the epididymis and testis. we assessed the epididymal anomalies and patency of process vaginalis in boys with udt.   material &method;: it is a prospective study which was performed on all cases of udt operated in a social security hospital between june 2006 and october 2007. all patients were operated on by one surgeon. in addition to general demographic data, the association between the patency of processus vaginalis and epididymal adhesion to testis was evaluated.   results: there were 81 patients. the mean age of patients was 30 months (3 months to 10.9 years). forty eight patients had unilateral and 33 patients had bilateral udt. in the unilateral group 79.2% and in the bilateral group 78.8% had palpable testis. the mean (±sd) size of testis in the palpable group was 10.8± 3.1 mm and in the non-palpable group was 8.5±3.3mm (t=2.89, p=0.005). the spearman   ‹s correlation coefficient showed that with increasing age the size of testis is also increased (rho=0.41, p<0.001).the mean size of testis in patients with normal epididymal adhesion was 12.6±3.3mm, with partial adhesion 10.8±3mm, and in patients without epididymal adhesion was 8.9±2.5mm (f=18.4, p<0.001). of 110 udt, the process vaginalis was patent in 101 cases (91.8%).   conclusion: process vaginalis is patent in most of cases of udt. there is a meaningful correlation between testis size and epididymal adhesion. testis abnormality (in size and epididymal adhesion) is seen more commonly in non-palpable cryptorchid patients.