Dear Krishna,

in my opinion, the correlation between the testicular volume and the semen characteristic really exists in principle. But it is the statistic value and I am not sure, if it could be applied on individual cases and especially in cases of varicocele. The main cause of the small testicular volume is the small volume of the spermatogenetic parenchyma of the testis (e.g. in the Sertoli cells only syndrome). It can not be the case in varicocele patients, where the main cause of the spermatogenesis disturbance is the worse blood flow in the testis.

Best regards

Pavel Travnik

did you checked the sperm acrosome reaction? because there is a correlation between subfertility and varicocele patient due to impaire function of sertoli cell. did you checked the inhibin serum level in those patients?

best regards

Ali

Please read the following paper:

Varicocele treatment in the light of evidence-based andrology.

Kamischke A, Nieschlag E.

Hum Reprod Update. 2001 Jan-Feb;7(1):65-9. Review.

PMID: 11212077 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Free Article

Pre-pubertal causes Eg, physical damage, genetic or endocrine causes, will lead to small hard testes. But in the case of post pubertal reasons the testes are small and soft. Varicocele may not affects the volume at grade I and II stages, but untreated long term prevalence of IIIrd stage varicocele will leads to subsequent damages and pathozoosepmia. There are many causes affects in testicular volume; sertoli cells syndrome, Klinefelters syndrome, disorders in hypothalamo-pituitary axis so on.

If you need to find a relationship between volume and semen quality it is better to exclude those confounding factors. In a small scale study we didn’t find a relationship.

However, do you know humans testes are smaller (proportion to body weight) compared to most of animals, ??

Varicocele normally results in an increase in the volume of the testile. However, in other cases infertility may result in hyeprvolemia or hypovolemia of testicle. In cases of apoptosis, necrosis of the germinal layer of the seminiferous tubules and testicular atrophy it become hypovolemic and in cases of orchitis, spermatocele, spermgranuloma and protozoan cysts its volum may increase.