Clinical Characteristics of Acute Epididymitis in Children and Adults

Park, Chang Hyun; Im, Jae Kyu; Kim, Ki Kyung; Park, Heung Won

Abstract

PURPOSE: We investigated if there are some differences in clinical charecteristics of acute epididymitis between child and adult and if ordinary therapeutic regimen based on antibiotics is the most appropriate one.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We reviewed medical records of 64 patients with acute epididymitis retrospectively, who took admission treatment from July, 1996 to June, 1998 at our hospital. These patients were divided into two groups, child and adult group, younger and older than 16 years respectively. The diagnosis of acute epididymitis was made by symptoms, physical examinations, doppler sonography, and/or radionuclide scan. Chronic epididymitis, recurrent epididymitis, patients taken antibiotics before admission, and surgical epididymis were excluded from this study. We investigated the age of the patients, symptoms, symptom duration and signs. Complete blood count, urinalysis, and urine culture were performed. Independent-samples T-test was used for the comparative analysis of the results.
RESULTS
Symptoms including scrotal swelling and pain were not different between two groups significantly. Signs including scrotal tenderness, fever, and leucocytosis were not different between two groups significantly. However, there were statistically significant differences between two groups in studies of urine. Pyuria or positive urine culture were 20.8%(5 of 24) in child group and 52.5%(21 of 40) in adult group(p<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS
In acute epididymitis, evidences of urinary tract infection were significantly lower in children than in adults. So, although further studies are needed to find out the exact cause of acute epididymitis, at least ordinary therapeutic regimen based on antibiotics would not be the best one for the majority of children without evidence of urinary tract infection.