1. Androgen Receptors and dartos tissue architecture are abnormal in Congenital Penile Malformations compared to healthy children
Analysis of a prospective series
Anne-Françoise Spinoit
Sarah Buelens, Marleen Praet, Erik Van Laecke, Piet Hoebeke
Department of Urology, University Hospital Ghent, Belgium

2. Introduction Congenital penile malformations
~ dartos tissue structural anomalies.
DT is a genital tissue  hormonal dependent ?
Pathophysiologic mechanisms ?

3. Objectives Assess relation between androgen receptors DT structure
CPM’s

4. Methods
Foreskin tissue samples prospectively collected since November 2011:
Cases: primary penile surgery for CPM (hypospadias, epispadias, buried penis)
Controls: non-medical circumcision
Histologically analysis : smooth-muscle actin, and since 2013 also with AR antibodies. This analysis concerns only samples processed between 2013 and 2016.
Pathologist, blinded for the indication, classified into 3 patters of staining.

5. Results Negative Weakly positive Positive p-value Controls (n=103) 65
494 samples were stained with SMA
210 were stained with AR antibodies.
Median age at surgery was 21 months [4-185].
Negative
Weakly
positive
Positive
p-value
Controls
(n=103) 65
(63.1%) 18
(17.5%) 20
(19.4%)
<0.001
Cases
(n=107) 96
(89.7%) 5
(4.7%) 6
(5.6%)

6. Results
ARa staining increased with age in controls (p=0.002) in contrary to cases (p=0.850).

7. Conclusions CPM : with significantly lower AR
with significantly DT disorganization compared to controls.
AR increases with age in controls, which is not observed in cases with CPM.