Testicular microlithiasis in adults and children: controversial and unresolved issues

Introduction. Testicular microlithiasis (TM) is one of the most controversial and controversial problems of urology in both adulthood and childhood. There is still an unresolved issue regarding the diagnosis of this condition. The relationship of testicular microlithiasis with infertility, the development of testicular cancer and a number of other diseases has been actively discussed for many years and has many polar points of view. The contradictions of therapeutic and diagnostic approaches to TM have not been eliminated to date. Materials and methods. The literature review is based on publications in PubMed databases (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/) and Scientific Electronic Library еLibrary.ru (https://elibrary.ru/), the sample is limited to articles in scientific peer-reviewed journals. 51 publications have been selected that are most relevant to the aspects under consideration. Results and discussion. The frequency of occurrence of testicular microlithiasis in various epidemiological and age groups is highlighted. The concept of testicular dysgenesis syndrome is presented as a generalized concept that includes TM. The conditions associated with TM, diagnostic methods of the disease and their possibilities are presented. Conclusion. Testicular microlithiasis is still a poorly understood problem in clinical andrology. It is generally accepted that ultrasound is the method of diagnosis and monitoring of the disease, other techniques are used very limited and cannot be recommended in everyday practice. There are no uniform algorithms for patient management, and the available recommendations suggest primarily observational tactics, advising to resort to biopsy in very rare cases combined with a well-founded suspicion of testicular neoplasm. These contradictions indicate the need for further study of the problem.