Abstract
It must be stated at the commencement of this chapter that the role of testicular biopsy in the management of male infertility is not often clearly defined. In large part this can be attributed to the generally poor results of the treatment of this condition and in many centres testicular biopsy is still done as a somewhat dubious research investigation. Different views on the indications for biopsy have been put forward in the past. Before the frequency of post-testicular obstruction was appreciated it was often said that biopsy of azoospermic patients was pointless since the count was so low that treatment (for example by hormones) was unlikely to be effective. Later the contrary view was put forward that biopsy on patients with very low sperm counts (below 20 million per ml) was valueless since there was no effective treatment for such patients. Biopsy was also once advocated in the investigation of eunuchoidism but modern hormonal, genetic and other investigations have usurped the histopathologist in this field.
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© 1985 I. D. Ansell
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Ansell, I.D. (1985). Testicular Biopsy. In: Atlas of Male Reproductive Pathology. Current Histopathology, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4868-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4868-6_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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