[Diseases of the penis--the morphological diagnosis of biopsy material]

Diseases of the penis account for a minor part of the general biopsy materials sent for examination, and usually represent varying in nature inflammatory processes and tumors. In the laboratory of andrology and mammary pathology of the department of pathoanatomy and cytopathology with the Alexander Hospital-Sofia, a total of 65 biopsies from the penis are investigated over an eight-year period. The greatest share of the latter is assigned to tumors and tumor-like processes (47.7 per cent), next ranking chronic nonspecific and granulomatous inflammatory processes (29.9 per cent), induratio penis plastica (18.5 per cent) and other diseases. Among the tumors carcinoma of the penis is the commonest (77.4 per cent); in 87.5 per cent it is a matter of flat-cellular, prevailingly highly differentiated neoplasm, and in 12.5 per cent-verrucous, posing considerable difficulties in histological differentiation from papillary benign neoplasms. Diagnosis may be rendered difficult in some of the seldom encountered granulomatous inflammations-sarcoidosis, sclerosing lipogranuloma.