Ultrastructural surface characteristics of seminiferous tubules from men with varicocele

Testicular biopsies were obtained from 40 otherwise healthy men with diagnosed varicocele and processed for scanning electron microscopy. Testis biopsies from two men with scrotal pain served as control. The seminiferous epithelium was variably affected, ranging from what appeared to be essentially normal to severely altered. In tubules in which normal cellular associations were compromised, the surface anatomy of the tubule epithelium was distorted, adluminal sertoli cell cytoplasm was truncated and there was an apparent displacement, reduction in number and, in some extreme cases, absence, of germ cells. Visualization of the varicocele-affected seminiferous epithelium by the scanning electron microscope reveals more fully the extent and three-dimensional character of adluminal compartment dissolution and reconfirms our four stage classification of seminiferous tubules in this pathology.