Our experience has shown that this new lithotripter is safe and provides a 68% to 86% chance of stone clearance.

Klinefelter syndrome is the most frequent chromosomal abnormality in patients with nonobstructive azoospermia. The development of advanced assisted reproductive techniques, such as testicular sperm extraction and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, has provided the possibility of biological fathering in nonobstructive azoospermic patients with Klinefelter syndrome. We aimed to evaluate our sperm retrieval rate by microdissection testicular sperm extraction and to analyse the intracytoplasmic sperm injection outcomes in these patients. Medical records of 110 nonobstructive azoospermic patients with Klinefelter syndrome were retrospectively reviewed. We found that the sperm retrieval rate by microdissection testicular sperm extraction is lower than published reports on other types of secretory azoospermia. The statistical analyses yielded that age, FSH and testosterone levels as predictive factors for successful sperm retrieval.

It is obvious that prognostic factors such as VEGF, COX-2, and PCNA may vary depending on histological subtype. The level of expression of these factors together with histological subtype may provide valuable predictive information about the outcome of treatment.

This study was aimed to investigate the effects of experimental left varicocele (ELV) repair on hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expressions and angiogenesis in rat testis. ELVs were surgically created in 26 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. Thirty days after surgery, ELV repair was performed in 13 of the rats. All rats subsequently underwent orchiectomy 30 days after the last laparotomy. Histology of ELV-repaired testicles was compared to that of the unrepaired (ELV) group. The frequency of positive HIF-1α findings was significantly lower in the ELV-repaired than in the ELV group. The frequency of positive VEGF findings was also lower in the ELV-repaired than in the ELV group, although the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.238). The mean microvessel density in ELV-repair group was significantly lower than that in the ELV group (P = 0.002). Our study demonstrated that ELV repair may protect tissues from hypoxia and hypoxia-related pathophysiologic events, such as angiogenesis, in rat testis.

In addition to the ADC value, the signal intensity curve on DW images using multiple b values could be helpful for differentiation of malignant and benign renal lesions.