Commentary to ‘Testicular atrophy and catch-up growth rates following paediatric primary orchidopexy: A prospective study’

Abstract

I congratulate the authors for conducting such a study on a common, simple surgical procedure that every pediatric surgeon and urologist practices on a daily basis. So many publications have published on the more complicated intraabdominal testis, but the literature is not as rich when analyzing the outcomes of simple orchiopexy of palpable testis. The authors designed their study in a prospective manner, to avoid the bias of a large retrospective study, and collected data to be able to obtain a homogenous objective data set. Unfortunately, the readers will be frustrated by the fact that the data were not prospectively collected following objective valid methodology. In experienced hands, the clinical evaluation could be expected to be accurate, but this can’t be taken for granted when large number of surgeons and trainees are included in the study. Certainly, we would expect that total atrophy and disappearance of the testis leave no doubt on the objectivity of the results, but there is strong doubt if we