Testicular cancer and Hodgking's disease: evaluation of semen quality

The aim of our study tovas to establish whether there is a difference in semen quality bet-ween puatients wiyth testicular cancer (TC) and Hodgkin's disease (HD). Methods. We evaluated 342 paìtients affected by TC(n=232) or HD (110) who cryobanked sperm before initiating chemo-or radiotherapy. All TC patients were evaluated 1 month after orchidectomy. Results. A total of 14 patients were azoospermic or cryptozoospermic. In the TC group (n = 222) the mean of the semen parameters was normal according to the World Health Organization (1992). However, dividing g thie cases into total sperm count >40X10 6 /ejaculate and <40X10 6 /ejaculate, 35.5 % of the patients showed an impaired semen quaity. The quality of sperm parameters was higher in seminoma patients than for the other histological groups. A significant difference for all semen variables was observed betweenì patients with serum ßhCG levels classified as pathological(>5 mIU/ml) and those with normal serum ßhCG. Comparison of semen parameters between TC stages I and II showed no significant differences. In the HD group (n = 106), we found that by and large they shiowed normal spermatogenesis, with only 24.5% having a total sperm count <40X10 6 /ejaculate. There was a significant decrease in semen quality in stages III and IV or HD. Conclusions: Better semen quality was observed in patients with HD than in those with TC. The semen qualitàobserved in our TC and HD groups seems better than previous results reported in the literature.