Abstract
Background: Infertility affects one fifth to one sixth of couples in the reproductive age group. A condition involving the male partner contributes to approximately 50% of cases of infertility. Conventional ultrasonography has the limitation of only functional analysis of testicular tissue, whereas elastography is a promising technique in this field.
Materials and Methods: A total of 82 patients between 20 – 45 years of age were evaluated between February 2018 to January 2019. The patients were divided into two groups based on semen analysis as Infertile (Group 1) and Fertile (Group 2). Semen analyses, B-mode, colourdoppler and sonoelastography examinations were performed. Measurements of testicular volumes, resistive indices (RI) in intraparenchymal arteries, strain value, strain ratio (SR) and presence of varicocele were recorded.
Results: Mean age of the patients were (Group1, 31.68 ± 3.78 years and Group 2, 29.68 ± 3.18 years). Mean Testicular volumes between Group 1 and 2 (13.87 ± 3.50 vs. 14.99 ± 1.98) were not significantly different. Mean Strain ratios between Group 1 and 2 (0.37 ± 0.08 vs. 0.22 ± 0.09, P <0.001) were significantly different. The SRs between men with various sperm abnormalities did not show any significant difference.
Conclusion: Strain elastography results were found to be significantly different in patients with abnormal sperm counts. This technique therefore proves to be a useful tool for the evaluation of male infertility. But further large scale studies may be needed to clarify the value of this imaging modality in the assessment of male infertility.
Keywords: Testicular Strain Elastography in Fertile and Infertile Men.
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Corresponding Author
Dr Akash Kumar B Y
Department of Radiology, Government Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital, Chennai, Tamil Nadu – 600010
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v11i2.25
