Fertility status of patients with clinical stage I testis tumors on a surveillance protocol

A potential benefit of a surveillance protocol for the management of patients with clinical stage I testis tumors is the avoidance of ejaculatory disturbances and infertility resulting from retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, the standard treatment for patients with this stage of disease. To address this issue we evaluated 22 patients with clinical stage I testis tumors on a surveillance protocol with history, physical examination and semen analysis. Previous fertility was unknown or it had not been tested in the majority of the patients (74 per cent). Ten patients (45 per cent) had abnormal spermatogenesis on the basis of a low sperm count or sperm motility. Of 6 patients with oligospermia or azoospermia 3 had recovered normal spermatogenesis when they were re-evaluated 4 to 19 months later. Although in this group of carefully staged cases the incidence of subfertile sperm counts seems to be similar to those with higher stage disease, some patients with abnormal counts clearly recover. The avoidance of retroperitoneal lymph node dissection seems to spare fertility in at least a small percentage of these patients.