1 Southern California Permanente Medical Group, 1050 West Pacific Coast Highway, Harbor City, California 90710
Among the several factors influencing the proper timing of surgery in cryptorchid children, the Section of Urology discusses two physiologic considerations: primary dysgenesis and thermal deterioration of germinal epithelium.1 Another physiologic factor that the committee did not discuss is damage done to the scrotal testicle in patients with unilateral cryptorchidism. For example, Mengel et al.2 found histologic damage to the unilaterally descended testicle in 67% of 237 cases. In addition, they refer to the work of Shirai et al.3 who demonstrated (in dogs) damage to both the retained and the scrotal testicle in experimentally induced unilateral cryptorchidism.