HYPERPLASIA AND NEOPLASIA OF THE INTERSTITIAL CELLS OF THE TESTICLE

Abstract

Considerable confusion exists as to the type and terminology of testicular tumors. Many varieties of tumor arise from the complex elements composing the testicle, and identities are further obscured by the possibility of teratoid origin. No attempt will be made to classify tumors of the testicle, but it may be stated that the scope of pure simple tumors of the testicle has been greatly narrowed by the study of teratoma testis and its derivatives. Ewing stated that all the common and nearly all the rarer testicular tumors arise from totipotent sex cells and that the monodermal forms represent one-sided developments of tridermal teratomas. Only rarely, he stated, do the stroma, duct cells, interstitial cells and adult seminiferous tubules give rise to characteristic growths. His view is more extreme than that of most, who separate from the group of teratoma testis and its derivatives the seminoma, or spermatocytoma, as being derived