MONTHLY CHANGES IN TESTICULAR ULTRASONOGRAPHY AND THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH RAM SPERM QUALITY

Abstract

Testicularultrasonographyisanon-invasive,complementarytechniquewhichprovidesinformationabouttestesechotextureandbloodflow.Theechotexture,or theultrasonographicappearanceofthetissue,canbeassessedbydeterminingthepixels’ intensityanduniformity. Asspermatogenesisintheramtakesabout 50dtocomplete,afterwhichtimethespermatozoaentertheepididymisforfinalmaturation,ultrasonographicscanningoftheram’stestesmayallowusto predictthequalityof fullymaturespermatozoaejaculatedinabout60d.Hence, informationabouttesticulartissueswouldbearapiddeterminationof the presentandthefuturesemenquality,respectively.Thus,thisstudyaimedtoevaluateseasonaldifferencesintestisultrasonographyparametersprovidedbythe ECOTEXTsoftware(Humeco,Spain), resistive(RI)andpulsatilityindexes(PI)byDoppler,andtheirrelationshipwithpresentandfuture(4and8weeksafter ultrasonographyevaluation)spermquality.