Morbidities associated with Testicular abnormality in pregnancy. A cohort study of 37375 infants

Abstract BACKGROUND Both hydrocele and cryptorchidism are common congenital abnormalities with an increasing incidence in many countries. Testicular abnormalities such as testicular hydrocele and cryptorchidism and their relationship with maternal hyperglycemia have become current research topics. This study researches whether increased blood sugar levels lead to congenital testicular abnormalities. MATERIALS & METHODS This retrospective and consecutive cohort study was conducted on singleton pregnancies having completed 20 or more weeks of gestation from the Fujian Provincial Maternity and Children’s Hospital, China. Differences were assessed with the Pearson χ2 test and the t-test for categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Univariate and multivariate logistic analyses were applied for outcomes. RESULTS A total of 37375 infants were enrolled for the selection of cases and controls. We found that oral glucose tolerance test(OGTT) of the case group's glucose level dramatically increased compared with the control group at 1 hour and 2 hours (p = 0.001, p = 0.016). In the testicular hydrocele group a remarkable increase was observed inOGTT1H and OGTT2H with the same criteria compared to the control group (p = 0.0001). Moreover, mothers were diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus(GDM) at a higher rate (p = 0.0001). The prevalence of premature delivery was also significantly higher in the testicular hydrocele group than in the control group (p = 0.0001). However, the OGTT0H was significantly higher in the cryptorchidism group compared to the control group (p = 0.0257). CONCLUSION The present study showed that hyperglycemia during pregnancy leads to a higher prevalence of testicular abnormality of the infants, such as testicular hydrocele and cryptorchidism. However, further investigation is required to determine whether premature delivery and GDM could contribute to the observed conditions.