Objective evaluation of fibrosis in human testicular biopsies by analysis based on optical diffractometry

Bilateral testicular biopsies were obtained from 27 patients and submitted to two different treatments for each of them: firstly, a classical fixation and colouring, permitting the histopathological diagnosis and subjective appreciation of the degree of fibrosis; secondly, a new objective technique based on optical diffractometry: this method is based on the analysis of light intensity distribution in the diffraction pattern of an original image. Using two different methods of discriminant analysis, we observed some errors due to the subjective examination; in particular, several fibrosed samples had been judged as 'normal' by the histopathologist. Moreover, we showed the existence of some heterogeneity between different slides from the same original biopsy.