AB214. Application of ultrasonic measurement of epididymal width in differential diagnosis of azoospermia

Objective: To investigate the of epididymal width in identifying non obstructive azoospermia (NOA) and obstructive azoospermia (OA).

Methods: Using scrotal ultrasound to compare difference of epididymal width between OA (n=18) and NOA (n=10) patients.

Results: In the patients with OA average bilateral epididymal width is 0.7+0.1 cm, which is higher than the NOA patients (P<0.05) by ultrasonic measurement. The average width of bilateral epididymis increased with the increase of Johnsen score (P<0.05). In ROC analysis, when 0.78, 0.33, 0.53 cm are used as the cut point for bilateral caput epididymis, corpus epididymis, cauda epididymis, respectively, the sensitivity for differential diagnosis is higher.

Conclusions: There is obvious difference in epididymal width under ultrasound between NOA and OA, which is helpful for differential diagnosis of azoospermia.

Keywords: Epididymal ultrasound