SPECIAL ARTICLE
Uterus didelphys: Anatomic variant
Hao Xiang,1 Jason Han,1 William E Ridley2 and Lloyd J Ridley1,3
1
Department of Radiology, Concord Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, New South Wales, Australia
2
University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia
3
Medical Imaging, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
doi:10.1111/1754-9485.58_12784
Fig. Coronal T2 weighted MRI sequence of a didelphys uterus with two uter-
ine cavities (arrows) and vaginas (arrowheads). Image courtesy of Dr J. Trieu,
Concord Repatriation General Hospital, NSW Australia.
A didelphys uterus arises when there is a complete fail-
ure of fusion of the two Mullerian ducts. This results in a
uterus with two separate endometrial cavities and two
cervices. It is associated with reduced fertility however
there have been cases of gestations arising from each
side reaching term.1
The word didelphys means double uterus in Greek and
this condition shares a name with the Didelphis marsupi-
alis or American opossum. This creature, and all
© 2018 The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists
marsupials, normally have two separate uterine cavities,
cervices, and vaginal cavities which open into a common
urogenital duct.2 Other animals that normally have a
didelphys configuration include rodents (such as rats,
mice and guinea pigs) as well as lagomorpha (such as
rabbits and hares).
Did you know?
In addition to uterus didelphys, a bicornuate uterus is
another configuration that is a normal finding in certain
animals such as ruminants (cows, sheep etc) as well as
cats and dogs, but is considered a Mullerian duct anom-
aly in humans.3 In humans, a bicornuate uterus occurs
when partial failure of Mullerian duct fusion results in a
uterus divided into two horns by a septum.
References
1. Raga F, Bauset C, Remohi J, Bonilla-Musoles F, Simon
€ lle-
C, Pellicer A. Reproductive impact of congenital Mu
rian anomalies. Hum Reprod 1997; 12: 2277–81.
2. Brabour R. Anatomy of Marsupials. The biology of Mar-
supials. London, UK: Macmillan Education. 1977;
237–72.
3. Uterus – Anatomy & Physiology – WikiVet English
[Internet]. En.wikivet.net. 2016 [Cited 8 November
2016.] Available from URL: https://en.wikivet.net/Ute
rus_-_Anatomy_%26_Physiology
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