[Sonographic evaluation of human male infertility]

The male partner is responsible for 50% of infertility in couples. Assessment of male infertility should include clinical examination, laboratory tests (semen analysis, dosage of gonadal and gonadotropic hormones) and sonographic examination of the urogenital tract. Male infertility is related to diverse abnormalities including testis lesions (infertility of secretory type) and obstructive disorders of the genital tract (infertility of excretory type). Sonographic examination with abdominal, scrotal and transrectal probes has become the major imaging modality to evaluate male infertility and especially to analyze infertility of excretory type related to inflammatory lesions, congenital agenesis of vas deferens and congenital cyst of the distal genital tract. The main purpose of this paper is to illustrate with sonography the normal anatomy of the male genital tract and to detail sonographic features of current pathologies responsible for human male infertility.