Abnormal testicular function: potential of P-31 MR spectroscopy in diagnosis

Phosphorus-31 MR spectroscopy of the human testis was performed on healthy volunteers (n = 17) and oligospermic (n = 7) and azoospermic patients (n = 4). All patients in the latter group had the Sertoli-cell-only syndrome. Determination of the ratios of phosphomonoesters (PMs) to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), phosphodiesters (PDs) to ATP, and inorganic phosphate (Pi) to ATP made it possible to discriminate among these three groups. The testicular PM/ATP ratio was 1.71 +/- 0.03 (mean +/- standard deviation) in the healthy volunteers and dropped to 1.41 +/- 0.06 (P less than .001 in comparison with healthy volunteers) in the oligospermic patients and to 1.22 +/- 0.07 (P less than .001) in the azoospermic patients. The testicular PD/ATP ratio did show a slight increase from 0.52 +/- 0.10 in healthy volunteers to 0.68 +/- 0.09 (not significant) for oligospermic patients and to 0.83 +/- 0.10 (P less than .01) for azoospermic patients. The Pi/ATP ratio did not show significant differences between healthy volunteers (0.12 +/- 0.07) and oligospermic patients (0.23 +/- 0.08) but was elevated in the azoospermic patients (0.79 +/- 0.12) (P less than .001).