Varicocele and sport in the adolescent age. Preliminary report on the effects of physical training

The effect of physical training on the natural history of varicocele has received little attention. The aim of the present pilot study was to evaluate the prevalence of idiopathic varicocele in young athletes, in the attempt to find a correlation between the training workload and the clinical grade of varicocele. We evaluated 150 adolescents with an age of 10-16 yr (median age: 13 yr). All these subjects were athletes practicing different sport at agonistic level. One hundred and fifty non-athlete adolescents of matched age (median: 13.5 yr) were used as controls. All underwent physical examination, and if a varicocele was suspected, the diagnosis was confirmed or excluded by echo-color-Doppler examination. The young athletes were stratified into two groups according to the different time spent for training: Group 1 - 6 h training per week; Group 2 - 7 to 12 h per week. Statistical analysis was performed. A p < 0.05 was considered significant. The physical examination revealed a clinical varicocele on the left side in 20 athletes. A significant positive correlation was observed between the Group 2 and the highest grade of varicocele (r(2) = 0.9918, p = 0.0041). In the adolescent group used as control we observed a varicocele in 16 cases. A positive correlation was observed between the number of athletes with varicocele and the highest grade of varicocele (r(2) = 0.96, p = 0.02). Sport training does not modify the prevalence of varicocele compared to the general population, but physical activity has to be considered as an aggravating factor in the natural history of varicocele. In countries where sport eligibility is necessary for agonistic sport practice, varicocele should be then considered as a conditioning factor.