The descriptive epidemiology of congenital and acquired cryptorchidism in a UK infant cohort

Abstract

The prevalence of congenital cryptorchidism was higher than earlier estimates in UK populations. Furthermore, this study for the first time describes acquired cryptorchidism or "ascending testis" as a common entity in male infants, which is possibly associated with reduced early postnatal androgen activity.

Risk of cryptorchidism and hypospadias among boys of maternal hairdressers – a Danish population-based cohort study

“…Therefore hypospadias reported in the Danish National Patient Registry presumably to a larger degree include more severe than mild cases. Nevertheless, the observed prevalences of 2.5% and 0.4% of cryptorchidism and hypospadias, respectively, in the cohort of sons of employed mothers resemble those reported in other studies (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14), and high positive predictive values have been found for the diagnosis of cryptorchidism (80%) and the registration of orchiopexy (99%) in the Danish National Patient Registry (37). Finally, the Danish healthcare system is free of charge and accessible to all Danish citizens, and we do not expect underestimation of cryptorchidism and hypospadias to differ between the occupational groups examined in this study.…”

“…In the supplementary analyses (tables 4 and 5), we observed HR for cryptorchidism among boys of hairdressers similar to those of the main analysis when we restricted our analyses to: (i) first liveborns (in total 270 912 male infants); (ii) women who did not receive any social benefit payments during gestational weeks Jørgensen et al [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]; (iii) cases of cryptorchidism to boys who were also treated with orchiopexy in total comprising 9722 children; and (iv) stratifying by birth year (1980-1989, 1990-1999 and 2000-2007). The latter analysis specifically showed that HR were consistent across birth years and that, at none of the studied birth year periods, boys of maternal hairdressers were at significantly increased or reduced risk for cryptorchidism (table 5).…”

“…EDC exposures have shown associations with the genital diseases cryptorchidism (incomplete testicular descent) and hypospadias (displacement of the urethral opening along the ventral shaft of the penis) (7,8). Cryptorchidism is a fairly common condition among boys with a prevalence at three months of age estimated to be 1.9% in Denmark, 1.0% in the USA, and 2.4% in the UK (9)(10)(11)(12). In contrast, hypospadias only occurs among 2-4 boys per 1000 male births in Europe (13,14).…”

Male infertility: Pathogenesis and clinical diagnosis

“…29,30 The so called "acquired cryptorchidism" is defined as the ascent of the testis into a cryptorchid position after normal scrotal position at birth and its cumulative incidence by age 24 months can be even higher than that observed at birth (in the UK congenital forms have a prevalence of 5.7% while "acquired" forms 7%). 31 The interaction of genetic and environmental (mainly endocrine disrupters) factors acting on the fetal testis has been proposed as the major determinant of the progressive increase during the past 50 years of pathologies such as cryptorchidism, testis cancer, hypospadia and impaired spermatogenesis in Western countries. This observation lead to the theory of the testicular dysgenesis syndrome which includes all the four above mentioned pathologies.…”

Acquired Cryptorchidism: What Should We Know? The Results of a Systematic Review

“…In a cross sectional Dutch study, Hack et al (Hack et al 2007a) found a prevalence of acquired UDT up to 2.2% among 6-13 year old boys. Acerini et al (Acerini CL et al 2009), in a UK infant cohort study observed a cumulative incidence up to 7% at the age of 24 months (0.7%, 4%, 1.3% , and 1% at ages 3 months, 12 months, 18 months , and 24 months respectively). More recently, Wohlfahrt-Veje et al (Wohlfahrt-Veje C et al 2009) reported that acquired UDTs account for 58% of all cases of cryptorchidism (congenital and acquired) at 18 months, 71% at 36 months and 69% thereafter.…”