Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of veterinary Medicine - Department of Surgery, Anesthesiology and Radiology

Surgical castration is widely used to sterilize male dogs and cats, but has significant impacts on time to perform the operation, recovery of the animals as well as cost, which can limit population control programs.Sterilization is usually performed to prevent undesirable breeding or prevent unwanted behaviour or future medical problem, and reducing the total number of unwanted puppies and kittens, The purpose of the present study is to determine the effectiveness of each neutering approach (surgical & non- surgical) through clinically, laboratory, ultrasonographically , macroscopically and histopathologically. Results At the 28th day post-operation pinhole castration was a minor invasive technique but more stressful than surgical technique ,ultrasonography of pinhole group revealed diffuse reduction in testicular and epididymis echogenicity The crossponding histopathology revealed necrotic changes, and atrophy of seminiferous tubules. Chemical castration using Calcium Cholorid 20%, in alcohol was the cheapest method for dogs and cats castration .The concentrations of plasma testosterone came as, the same as, in surgical castrated animals .The less stressful method was chemical sterilization which came as the same as, results in control group. By histopathological evaluation there were degenerative changes as calcification, necrosis, fibrosis and desquamation of semineferous tubules. This chemical method of sterilization might provide an effective, efficient and permanent alternative to surgical castration that can have positive impacts on dog and cat welfare

Issued also as CD