Acute scrotum

Abstract

Acute scrotum always represents a clinical emergency and is seen in 0,5% of patients attending acute care units. The main cause of acute scrotum are inflammatory conditions of the testis or epididymis and testicular torsion. Based on clinical evaluation the differential diagnosis between these two conditions can be challenging. In order to proper evaluate patients with acute scrotum we can resort to Doppler ultrasound or scrotal scintigraphy that have the ability to depict local anomalies or decreased blood flow. The Doppler ultrasound is a less invasive test, performed quickly and with low costs, easily available and with a high sensitivity (around 90%) and specificity (about 99%). On the other hand scrotal scintigraphy allows for precise depiction of testicular blood irrigation but is a slow procedure and less available in the clinical setting. When the proper diagnosis can not be made safely with the aforementioned tests, immediate surgical exploration must be performed in order to avoid definitive testicular loss associated to spermatic cord torsion.