Testicular fine needle aspiration cytology in azoospermic males

One hundred one azoospermic males were subjected to fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of the testis and 11 of them underwent testicular biopsy as well. In 99 cases, the aspiration was adequate for classifying into different categories, which are as follows: Sertoli cell only syndrome (46), normal spermatogenesis (27), hypospermatogenesis (10), tubular/peritubular sclerosis (10) and maturation arrest (6). The percentage population of Sertoli cells and spermatogenetic cells and cell indices including spermatic index, Sertoli cell index and sperm-Sertoli cell index were calculated. In normal spermatogenesis, fine needle aspiration (FNA) smears showed upto 40.0% Sertoli cells and spermatozoa were the predominant spermatogenetic cell type. In Sertoli cell only syndrome, there were sheets of Sertoli cells that constituted 88.0-100.0%. Progressively increasing values of the Sertoli cell index and progressively decreasing values of the sperm-Sertoli index were seen in normal spermatogenesis, maturation arrest, hypospermatogenesis, tubular/peritubular sclerosis and Sertoli cell only syndrome. In this study, complete agreement between testicular FNAC and histology was noted. Pecentage cell counts and cell indices in testicular FNA and 100.0% cyto - histo correlation make the FNAC preferable to biopsy in assessing azoospermic males.