Effect of unilateral orchidectomy on testicular characteristics of the domestic cat

GARCÍA ROMERO G., SIRINI M., RISSO A., FERNÁNDEZ P., GOBELLO C., BARBEITO C.

Wisconsin

Congreso; Society for Theriogenology Annual Conference; 2011

The aim of this study was to describe the effect of unilateral orchidectomy (UO) on testicular characteristics of mature domestic cats. Five, 1 to 2 y old, crossbreed male cats were unilaterally orchidectomized on d 0 (right testis) and d 60 (left testis). All the animals were exposed to > 12 h of daylight for 2 m before and after the first hemicastration. After surgical removal, the testes were weighed and measured. Testicular volume and gonadosomatic index [1] were also calculated. The testes were fixed in Bouin and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. In twenty rounds tubular profiles the maximum, minimum and medium tubular diameters; major and minor axes, area, perimeter and germinal epithelium height were measured (Image Pro Plus, MA, USA). The volumes of the different testicular tissue components were determined using an intersection grid on 40x photographies. For this, fifteen fields were chosen randomly and scored for each animal. Points were classified as spermatogonia, primary and secondary spermatocytes, round and elongated spermatids, spermatozoa, Leydig and Sertoli cells, intertubular compartment, basement membrane, lumen or cellular debris. The total length of seminiferous tubules was also obtained [1]. Both groups (d 0 vs. d 60) were compared by Student?s t test and P values < 0.05 were considered significant. No significant differences between testes groups were found for any of the gross and microscopic parameters assessed (mean±SEM): testis weight (1.54±0.4 g vs.1.7±0.2 g), length (1.94±0.1 cm vs.1.92±0.8 cm) and width (1.04±0.1 cm vs.1.04±0.1 cm), volume (0.95±0.1cm3 vs. 0.95±0.1 cm3), gonadosomatic index (0.03±0.01 % vs. 0.04±0.01 %), maximum (240.5±29.8 μm vs. 250.8±18.6 μm), minimum (166.6±24.4 μm vs.194.1±13.1 μm) and medium (202.6±26.2 μm vs. 220.9±14.9 μm) tubular diameters, major (240.9±29.1 μm vs. 247.5±18.3 μm) and minor (171.8±24.7 μm vs. 200.4±12.6 μm) tubular axes, area (35356.2±8482.8 μm2 vs. 39622.9±5193.4 μm2) and tubular perimeter (668.1±84.8 μm vs. 718.7± 47.7μm), germinal epithelium height (58.6±7.5 μm vs. 55.3±5.3 μm), spermatogonias (0.056±0.1 cm3 vs. 0.052±0.1cm3), primary spermatocytes (0.10±0.1 cm3 vs. 0.11±0.1 cm3), secondary spermatocytes (0.003±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.002±0.01 cm3), round spermatids (0.12±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.13±0.01 cm3), elongated spermatids (0.07±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.066±0.01 cm3), spermatozoa (0.04±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.03±0.01 cm3), Sertoli cells (0.064±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.072±0.01 cm3), Leydig cells (0.04±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.04±0.01 cm3), intertubular compartment (0.12±0.02 cm3 vs. 0.12±0.02 cm3), lumen (0.2±0.04 cm3 vs. 0.3±0.03 cm3), cellular debris (0.02±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.01±0.01 cm3), tubular- intertubular compartment proportion (7.17±1.2 vs. 7.29±1.3), basement membrane (0.02±0.01 cm3 vs. 0.02±0.01 cm3) and total tubular length (38.73±10.5 m vs. 32.66±6.2 m). To our knowledge, this is the first investigation to describe the effect of UO in the domestic cats. According to these biometric and morphometric results adult cats, the same that rodents [2], do not develop compensatory hypertrophy after UO