Diagnosis And Treatment Of Leydig Cell Tumor

Objective To investigate and summarize the experience of diagnosis and treatment of Leydig cell tumor.Methods Clinical data of 8 patients were diagnosed with Leydig cell tumor and treated with surgery in Shandong provincial hospital from August 1997 to October 2007.Case files of all patients were retrospectively analyzed including clinical manifestation,image examination,pathologic examination and surgical procedure as well as follow-up.Results Patients age range was 2 to 33 years(means 23.8),1 case was bilateral, 4 cases were on the right,and 3 cases were on the left.Of the 8 patients with Leydig cell tumor,5 patients were treated with radical orchiectomy;In the other patients lesions were resected and sent for frozen section examination,all the frozen section examination were diagnosed as benign and they were underwented testicular tumor enucleation.All patients underwented postoperative follow-up,Average follow-up was 60 months(range 5 to 128).No local recurrence or distant metastasis was observed in the follow-up.All patient were free from disease at follow-up.Conclusions Leydig cell tumor is a rare tumor of the male testicular interstitium and account for a small proportion of all testicular tumors.There is a lack of characteristic clinical manifestation,specific imaging characteristics and laboratory examinations,preoperative diagnosis can only be made by pathological examination. Surgical treatment is the only effective treatment method for Leydig cell tumor. Traditional surgical method was radical orchiectomy.But for some patients such as pre-adolescent patients,bilateral testicular Leydig cell tumor or single testis,if Leydig cell tumor show a benign disease process and frozen section examination diagnosis is benign,these patients could be treated with tumor enucleation.Tumor enucleation would be a feasible and safe choice for some patients with Leydig cell tumor.