Orchidoma in the Elderly

In 1991, I was surprised to observe a case of “orchidoma” in the elderly. [In 1988, I had suggested the inclusion of all the different histological varieties of germ cell tumors of the testicle under one term: “orchidoma” [1-3]. By “elderly” I mean males 60 years old or older]. In the 1990s it was common to consider orchidoma, not only a tumor of young men, but also a rarity in males aged 60 or more. It was commonly taught that “orchidoma” holds a high place in the list of differential diagnoses of testicular masses in adults; whereas it held a low place in elderly males. The publication of Dean’s series of testicular tumors from Memorial Hospital in New York in 1963 [4] had established the incidence of orchidomas in the elderly at 2.04% (Table 1). In a subsequent publication of a larger series of collected cases in 1964 from The Institute of Urology in London [5], this percentage was found to be 3.13% (Table 2), thus confirming the belief that orchidoma was rare in the elderly, but is on the rise. In a relatively short period of time, two years (1991-1993), I observed two cases of orchidoma in the elderly.