Testicular cancer and Hodgkin's disease: evaluation of semen quality

BACKGROUND: The aim of our study was to establish whether there is a difference in semen quality between patients with testicular cancer (TC) and Hodgkin's disease (HD). METHODS: We evaluated 342 patients affected by TC (n = 232) or HD (n = 110) who cryobanked sperm before initiating chemo- or radiotherapy. All TC patients were evaluated approximately 1 month after orchidectomy. RESULTS: A total of 14 patients were azoospermic or cryptozoospermic. In the TC group (n = 222) the mean of the semen parameters was normal according to the World Health Organization (1992). However, dividing the cases into total sperm count > or =40x10(6)/ejaculate and <40x10(6)/ejaculate, 35.5% of the patients showed an impaired semen quality. The quality of sperm parameters was higher in seminoma patients than for the other histological groups. A significant difference for all semen variables was observed between patients with serum betahCG levels classified as pathological (>5 mIU/ml) and those with normal serum betahCG. Comparison of semen parameters between TC stages I and II showed no significant differences. In the HD group (n = 106), we found that by and large they showed normal spermatogenesis, with only 24.5% having a total sperm count <40x10(6)/ejaculate. There was a significant decrease in semen quality in stages III and IV of HD. CONCLUSIONS: Better semen quality was observed in patients with HD than in those with TC. The semen quality observed in our TC and HD groups seems better than previous results reported in the literature.