Cytogenetics in urology

Cytogenetic investigations throw some light into the bizarre and confusing state of intersexuality and disorders of sexual differentiation. Many a time, presentation of a patient with a totally ambiguous or mixed up external genitalia, lends confusion towards the assignment of sex to the individual patient. Even more disastrous is the assignment of the wrong sex to a patient due to the fact that inadequate investigations had been performed, followed by a hasty surgical procedure based on the inadequate investigations. With cytogenetic investigations, sex assignment is made slightly easier and more sensible. These investigations should be performed in the very early stages of life. Parents and sometimes patients themselves are, therefore, as a consequence, advised in a meaningful manner, to avoid later psychological catastrophes and hazards. Cytogenetic studies are therefore a prerequisite, an advantage, and imperative in patients with ambiguous genitalia. The experiences here involving 87 patients, have demonstrated that these investigations will always help to categorise the ambiguous genitalia patient accurately.