Doctors have identified a man with a uterus attached to his testicles. He suffers from Müller’s duct persistence syndrome.
- About 150 to 200 cases of persistence of Müllerian ducts have been reported in the literature.
- The physical examination showed a man with osteo-musculature, average body hair and a well-developed penis.
- If the uterus remains in the abdominal cavity, there is no increased risk of pathological changes.
A 67-year-old man went to hospital in Pristina, Albania, because he had been suffering from an inguinal hernia, that is to say in the level of the left groin, for ten years. In a report published in the journal Urology Case Reportsdoctors reported that the swelling increased when he stood, coughed and tensed, but decreased in size when he lay down.
A pear-shaped uterus
During the operation to treat his hernia, practitioners found that the right testicle of the father of three children had “poorly descended” since birth. As for his left testicle, it was palpable and visible. “When the inguinal canal was opened, a pear-shaped structure resembling a uterus was found, the scrotum (the sac of skin containing the testicles) contained fallopian tubes. In the abdominal wall on the same side, one found a testicle well attached to the patient’s uterus and epididymis (a duct through which sperm pass),” can we read in the report.
Müllerian duct syndrome
According to medical professionals, the married man had a uterus attached to his testicles due to persistent Mullerian duct syndrome. It is a rare form of male pseudohermaphroditism. It is characterized by the presence of the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovary caused by persistent Mullerian duct structures in a male “phenotypically and genotypically normal”.
In the fetus, the Mullerian and Wolffian ducts are present during the first seven weeks of pregnancy. In boys, Müller’s ducts disappear from the 7th week of gestation. In girls, it is Wolff’s ducts that vanish. But in the case of the persistence of the Mullerian ducts syndrome, the Mullerian ducts remain present in male babies.
Removal of the testicle and uterus
The doctors decided to perform an ablation of the atrophied right testicle and to remove the uterus and the fallopian tubes. After surgery, they noticed that this structure contained a cavity and cervix and was secreting clear mucus. “The analysis of the patient’s chromosomes and karyotype could not be carried out in our country, but it would be interesting to carry out this analysis in the future in the event of similar cases”, concluded the practitioners.