Relationship of azoospermia to inguinal surgery

Nearly one‐third of paediatric surgery consists of operations on the inguinal canal. A late complication of this is male sterility due to damage to the vas deferens. Correction of this preventable cause is problematical and there is poor outlook for the severly oligozoospermic and azoospermic male. The true incidence of unilateral damage to the vas deferens is unknown, as this can be masked by a normal reproductive tract on the contralateral side. However, occasionally more subtle changes other than direct transection and fibrosis of the vas deferens can prevent sperm transport. This may be related to damage to the vas pseudocilia, it's auto‐nomic and peptidergic innervation leading to defective contractility. This report presents four cases, which confirm the vunerability of the vas deferens during inguinal surgery and highlight azoospermia as a late complication.