A prominent capsular artery is usually well seen. The basic pattern seen with color and Angio is of radiating vessels extending through the testicular tissue. In practice, with current technology, you will see only a handful of arteries in each field of view of a normal testis. Venous drainage is via a network of small veins which form in the mediastinum and pass upwards to surround the testicular artery as the pampiniform plexus, Eventually, these veins join to form the testicular veins which drain on the left into the left renal vein, and on the right into the inferior vena cava. The scrotal wall is supplied via branches of the internal and external pudendal arteries and the perineal arteries.
Venous drainage is by the external pudendal veins to the greater saphenous vein.
If no flow is found with color Doppler at low scale and, high gain settings, switch to Angio and increase the gain until noise floods the image. For more information on differential flow in the scrotal organs, see Part II, Applications. After reading this article, continue to Part II for a detailed look at various scrotal and testicular abnormalities. Selected References 1. Recent advances in sonography of the testis and scrotum.