Testicular problems in children

Testicular problems are common in children and it behoves all medical practitioners to be conversant with those they are likely to encounter. Conditions may be subdivided into congenital (e.g. undescended testes, absent testes, ectopic testes, torsion) or acquired (e.g. torsion, infection, trauma, tumour). There are also a number of scrotal and inguino-scrotal conditions (varicocele, inguinal hernia, hydrocoele, idiopathic scrotal oedema, torted appendage of the testis) that have to be considered as part of the differential diagnosis in testicular pathology. This review highlights the common conditions and outlines some of their clinico-pathological features. It also mentions some of the rarer entities for the sake of completeness.