Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Mar 16, 2023; 11(8): 1794-1798
Published online Mar 16, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i8.1794
Testicular pain originating from lumbar disc degeneration: A case report
Xiu-Jie Yan, Bing Wu, Xin He, Zi-Kai Tian, Bao-Gan Peng
Xiu-Jie Yan, Bing Wu, Xin He, Zi-Kai Tian, Bao-Gan Peng, Department of Spine Surgery, The Third Medical Center, PLA (People’s Liberation Army) General Hospital, Beijing 100039, China
Author contributions: Yan XJ, Wu B, He X and Tian ZK contributed equally to this work; Wu B wrote the manuscript; He X and Yan XJ collected data for review; Peng BG reviewed the manuscript; Wu B, and Tian ZK treated the patient; All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: The patient provided informed written consent about personal and medical data collection prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report having no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Bao-Gan Peng, MD, PhD, Professor, Surgeon, Department of Spine Surgery, The Third Medical Center, PLA (People’s Liberation Army) General Hospital, No. 69 Yongding Road, Beijing 100039, China. pengbaogan76611@163.com
Received: November 1, 2022
Peer-review started: November 1, 2022
First decision: December 19, 2022
Revised: January 7, 2023
Accepted: February 15, 2023
Article in press: February 15, 2023
Published online: March 16, 2023
Processing time: 125 Days and 19.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Testicular pain caused by lumbar disease is uncommon in the clinic. Here we reported a case of discogenic low back pain with testicular pain that was successfully cured.

CASE SUMMARY

A 23-year-old male patient presented to our department with chronic low back pain. Based on his clinical symptoms, signs and imaging, he was diagnosed with discogenic low back pain. Since conservative treatment for more than half a year did not significantly improve his low back pain, we decided to treat it with intradiscal methylene blue injection. During the course of surgery, we again identified the low back pain as originating from the degenerated lumbar disc by analgesic discography. Interestingly, the patient’s low back pain disappeared along with the testicular pain that had been present for more than 3 mo. After the operation, the patient’s low back pain improved, and the testicular pain did not reappear.

CONCLUSION

Intradiscal methylene blue injection is a convenient and effective surgical intervention for the treatment of discogenic low back pain. Lumbar disc degeneration may also be a possible clinical cause of testicular pain. Methylene blue injection in the diseased disc improved the low back pain, and the accompanying testicular pain was successfully managed.

Keywords: Disc degeneration; Testicular pain; Low back pain; Case report; Intradiscal methylene blue injection

Core Tip: Herein, we present a case of a patient who was cured of testicular pain after treatment of discogenic low back pain. Lumbar disc degeneration may be a possible etiology of testicular pain.