Usually, chronic
orchitis is induced by two causes, that is, acute non-specific orchitis when it is not cured thoroughly, and infection caused by mold, leptospira or parasites. For example, if a patient, who has a previous medical history of traumatic injury of testes, is infected with syphilis of testis, it might induce granulomatous orchitis. In addition, if a part or the whole of testes is irradiated by radioactive phosphorus isotope that can damage the tissue of testes, it also might induce orchitis.
Pathologically, being infected with chronic orchitis, the testes would become swelling and enlarging, or hardening and shrinking, the basal lamina of seminiferous tubule emerge hyalinization, the cells of seminiferous epithelium vanish, and the tissue around seminiferous tubule become hard or form a focus of hyperplasia.
According to clinical examination, chronic orchitis might be manifested as follow:
The testes become swelling and enlarging chronically with a hard interior and a smooth surface. It is accompanied with slight tenderness and is deficient of normal sensitivity. Sometimes, one or both sides of testes will shrink gradually and in severe cases the testes almost become undiscovered, while the epididymis will enlarge comparatively. In most cases, the infected region usually starts from epididymis and then spreads to testes that will eventually cause vague distinction between them. If the chronic orchitis emerges in both sides of testes, it will cause infertility in general.
In order to curing chronic orchitis thoroughly, it must take therapeutic measures to treat the causative agent of it directly.
Key words: orchitis; chronic orchitis; orchitis diagnosis
