Prevalence of undescended testis in children aged 6 months to 12 years visiting the pediatric filter clinic at Kenyatta national hospital

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study wasto determine the prevalence of undescended testis among children between the age of 6 months and 12 years attending the Paediatrics Filter Clinic at Kenyatta National Hospital. RESEARCH DESIGN: This was a hospital- basedcross-sectional study. SUBJECTS: :The study included 679 male children between the age of 6 months to 12 years attending the Paediatric Filter Clinic between September 2012 and April 2013 and whose parents/guardian gave consent for the study. METHODS: A structured questionnaire was used for evaluation of sociodemographic data. History was taken from the parent/guardian to look for factors associated with undescended testes. Physical examination was used to ascertain if the testis were descended or undescended as it has been used on other published studies (35, 36, 37). Those testes not found in the scrotum were labelled as undescended. RESULTS:Six hundred and forty seven male infants and children were included in this study. Of these 35(5.4%) were found to have undescended testis. In 20(57.1%) of the cases, undescended testis was found on the right side,10 of the cases(28.6%)were found on the left side,4 of the cases were found to have bilaterally undescended testis and there was one case of ambiguous genitalia who had been entered as a male infant . CONCLUSION: A prevalence of undescended testis of 5.4% was found in this population of male infants and children visiting Paediatric Filter Clinic at Kenyatta National Hospital during the period of study. This study detects a similar prevalence to those reported in previous studies from sub-Saharan Africa. RECOMMENDATIONS: It is recommended midwives, doctors and other health workers should routinely look for undescended testes whenexamining babies and children