DOI:10.4111/kju.2011.52.7.489 Pediatric Urology Clinical Characteristics and Surgical Outcomes in Adolescents and Adults with Varicocele

Purpose: To compare clinical characteristics and surgical results in adolescents and adults with varicocele. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the characteristics of 93 patients, 34 adolescents (mean age, 14.4±2.1 years) and 59 adults (mean age, 30.4±12.4 years), who underwent surgical repair of varicocele between 2006 and 2009. Median follow-up time in all patients was 18.7 months. The most bothersome symptoms, bilaterality, grades, surgical methods, artery-sparing rates, operation times, semen analysis, suc-cess rates, and recurrence-free period were compared between the two groups. Results: The overall success rate of surgical repair was 92.5%. The most bothersome symptoms were scrotal mass, pain, and hypotrophy in adolescents and pain, scrotal mass, infertility, and hypotrophy in adults (p=0.008). There were no significant be-tween-group differences in bilaterality, grades, surgical methods, operation times, pre-or postoperative semen analyses, success rates, or recurrence-free periods. Patients who underwent artery-sparing surgery had higher recurrence rates than did those who underwent surgery that did not spare arteries. In adults, semen density increased sig-nificantly after surgery, from 35.6 million/ml to 49.6 million/ml (p=0.046). Conclusions: There were no significant differences in clinical characteristics or surgical results between adolescents and adults with varicocele, except for the most bothersome symptoms. Semen density increased after surgery in both groups. Key Words: Arteries; Semen analysis; Spermatic cord; Treatment outcome; Varicocele This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licens