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Scrotal sonography with a 7.5 MHz sector scanner was performed on 658 consecutive patients of our infertility clinic. The incidence of pathological findings was unexpectedly high. Forty per cent of the patients revealed pathological structures such as varicoceles (21%), hydroceles (7%), epididymal abnormalities (6%), spermatoceles (6%), intratesticular hyper- and hypoechoic changes (4.5%), intratesticular cysts (1%) and tumours or carcinoma in situ (CIS) (0.6%). Sonographic evaluation and measurement of the caput epididymidis was compared with palpation. Sonography distinguished size ranges of "normal" and "thickened" epididymides as diagnosed by palpation. Cystic structures were proven in 56% of cases with "thickened" epididymides. The sonographically determined diameters of doppler-negative blood vessels were significantly smaller than those of doppler-positive vessels. Sonography revealed a higher occurrence of varicoceles than diagnosed by palpation (76% by palpation). Only 58% of sonographically identified hydroceles and only 67% of sonographically detected spermatoceles were detected by palpation. One testicular tumour and one case with CIS were only seen by sonography and not suspected on palpation. The results demonstrate that sonography represents a valuable tool in the routine diagnosis of andrological patients.

Epididymal sperm reserve was determined in 6 sexually mature fertile buffalo-bulls having normal process of spermatogenesis. The relative distribution of spermatozoa in the caput, corpus and cauda epididymidis averaged 5.42, 0.75 and 11.45 billion respectively. Total epididymal sperm reserve per bull averaged 36.2 billion. In terms of percentage the caput, corpus and cauda epididymidis contained 30.76, 4.25 and 64.99 per cent sperm respectively.

Zusammenfassung Die Spermatozoenkonzentration in verschiedenen Abschnitten des Nebenhodens von Buffel-Bullen Mittels der Mikropunktionstechnik wurde aus verschiedenen Abschnitten des Nebenhodens Sekret gewonnen, und sodann jeweils der Spermatokritwert bestimmt. Diese Studien wurden an 8 Buffel-Bullen vorgenommen. Der Spermatokritwert vermittelt einen Eindruck von der Konzentration der Spermatozoen. Im Nebenhodenkopf ergab sich ein Spermatokritwert von 42.63 ± 0,79, im Nebenhodenschwanz von 56.13 ± 0.94. Die Autoren vertreten die Auffassung aufgrund ihrer Studien, das 13.5% der Flussigkeit zwischen Nebenhodenkopf und -schwanz resorbiert werden. Diese Resorption ist verant-wortlich fur die strukturelle Kondensation der Organellen der Spermatozoen, was sich in dem signifikanten Ruckgang der Mittelteil-Lange der Spermatozoen wahrend der Passage vom Nebenhodenkopf zum -schwanz.

Epididymis were collected from cyproterone acetate-treated Black Bengal goats. Treatment for 70 days reduced the epididymal weight. Caput epididymidis showed drastic decrease in the height of the epithelium, loss of stereocilia, the number of narrow cells and apical cells. Though the corpus showed dramatic changes after treatment, cauda epididymidis showed moderate changes.