Prognosis

Patient outcomes depend upon multiple factors, including unilateral versus bilateral cryptorchidism, location of cryptorchid testis, and age at surgical correction. Successful surgical correction, defined as scrotal position without atrophy, has been reported as 92% to 95% for testes located beyond the external inguinal ring; failure rates increase for testes in higher locations.[97][98] While the rates of testicular cancer may be somewhat higher in patients with cryptorchidism who undergo early orchiopexy compared with the general population, rates of malignancy are increased nearly 6 times in patients who undergo late surgical correction or do not undergo correction of cryptorchidism compared with patients who undergo early orchiopexy.[75][112]

The chance of later neoplasia in a boy born with unilateral undescended testicle is approximately 1 in 120, and with bilateral undescended testicles the chance is approximately 1 in 44. The higher the testis is in the abdomen, the higher the risk appears to be.[75][112]

Increasingly, cryptorchid patients who are infertile are using assisted reproduction and testis sperm retrieval. Often sperm can be retrieved in adult men with azoospermia with repaired uni- or bilaterally undescended testes.[113]

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