more commonly affects women, and if untreated, can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. serious symptoms in men are rare, but include swollen testicles and an unusual discharge from the penis. it is effectively treated with antibiotics. antisperm antibodies antisperm antibodies (asa) have been considered as infertility cause in around 10–30% of infertile couples. asa production are directed against surface antigens on sperm, which can interfere with sperm motility and transport through the female reproductive tract, inhibiting capacitation and acrosome reaction, impaired fertilization, influence on the implantation process, and impaired growth and development of the embryo. risk factors for the formation of antisperm antibodies in men include the breakdown of the blood‑testis barrier, trauma and surgery, orchitis, varicocele, infections, prostatitis, testicular cancer, failure of immunosuppression and unprotected receptive anal or oral sex with men. testicular torsion testicular torsion is a condition of physical twisting of the testis which results in cutting off the blood supply. it leads to damage that, if not treated within a few hours, causes the death of testicular tissue, and requires removal of the testis to prevent gangrene, and therefore can cause infertility. autoimmune orchitis orchitis is a condition of testicular pain involving swelling, inflammation and possibly infection. orchitis can be caused by an autoimmune reaction (autoimmune orchitis) leading to a reduction in fertility. autoimmune orchitis is rare in humans, compared to anti-sperm antibodies. to study orchitis in the testis, autoimmune orchitis has been induced in the rodent testis. the disease starts with the appearance of testicular antibodies, then movement of macrophages and lymphocytes from the blood stream into the testis, breaking of the physical interactions between the developing sperm and sertoli cells, entry of neutrophils or eosinophils, and finally death of the developing sperm, leading to infertility. inflammation models in the rodent experiments in rats have examined, in fine detail, the course of testicular events during a bacterial infection. in the short term (3 hours) multiple inflammatory factors are produced and released by testicular macrophages. examples are prostaglandin e2, inducible nitric oxide synthase (inos), tnfα and il-1β, although at lower levels than other tissues. non-immune cells of the testis such as sertoli cells and leydig cells also able to respond to bacteria. during a bacterial infection, testosterone levels and the amount of testicular interstitial fluid are reduced. neutrophils enter the testis about 12 hours after infection. importantly, there is damage to the developing sperm, which start to die under severe infections. despite all the data on the effects of bacteria on normal testis parameters, there is little experimental data regarding its effect on rodent fertility. other diseases where testicular inflammation can be a symptom testicular inflammation can be a symptom of the following diseases: coxsackie a virus, varicella (chicken pox) human immunodeficiency virus (hiv), dengue fever, epstein barr virus-associated infectious mononucleosis, syphilis, leprosy, tuberculosis.