Testicular Surveillance Post-Orchidopexy and its Impact on Early Diagnosis of Testicular Cancer.

Paediatric surgeons are expected to counsel patients about the potential risk of cancer post-orchidopexy and the need to self-examine in adulthood. The study objectives were to examine if such advice is being given and identify the stage of cancer at presentation in adult patients with history of orchidopexy. This was a 5-year observational, retrospective collaborative study between a tertiary paediatric surgical unit and its regional adult testicular cancer service, examining the nature of counselling given by paediatric surgeons to orchidopexy patients and their carers and estimating the local incidence of testicular cancer in adults with previous orchidopexy during the same period. Orchidopexy was performed in 228 patients with a mean follow-up of 11.9 months. Twenty-two patients had documented advice to self-examine from puberty onwards. The advice was not influenced whether the surgery was staged or single ( = 0.39). During the 5 years, 133 adults were diagnosed with testicular cancer, 6 (4.5%) were cases of previous cryptorchidism, seminoma ( = 5) and non-seminoma germ cell tumour ( = 1). In our study, the incidence of cryptorchidism in testicular cancer was 4.5%, with all cancer patients presenting with early disease despite documented advice to self-examine being low (9.7%).