Preservation of testicular tissue after enucleation of pediatric mature teratoma: A case series of 7 testes in 6 children.

INTRODUCTION

A standard protocol for testis-sparing surgery for pediatric benign testicular tumors has not been established to date.

CASE REPORT

We treated 7 teratomas in 6 patients aged 12 years of younger. For 2 noncystic lesions, the spermatic cord was exposed via the transinguinal approach and clamped until the establishment of an intraoperative pathological diagnosis. The other 5 tumors in 4 infant patients were all preoperatively diagnosed with cystic teratoma, and we essentially exposed the testis directly via the scrotal approach and enucleated the tumor without clamping the cord. In every case, adequate amount of normal testicular tissue was preserved, without any local recurrence with 3-year minimum follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

An unclamped enucleation of testicular tumor via the transscrotal approach, which is contraindicated in most testicular tumors, can be a treatment choice exclusively for preoperatively diagnosed mature cystic teratoma in infants.