[Malformations of the scrotum and its contents]

To introduce we report the embryological origin of the male genitals and we present the endocrine control of the sex phenotypic differentiation and the most important features of the sexual differentiation abnormalities (ambiguous genitalia of newborn, gonadal dysgenesis, chromosome anomalies). Subsequently we report the classification of cryptorchidism and its correlation with hormonal and histological abnormalities. Furthermore we tried to expose the various different thoughts about testicular descent, anomalies associated with cryptorchidism and implications with malignant degeneration and infertility. Finally we describe the Magenta hospital experience from 1972 to 1998 reporting the surgical procedures for undescended testicle and for scrotal anomalies.