The extremely rare vascular variant of a segmental duplicated uterine artery and its relevance for the interventionist and gynecologist: a case report.
BACKGROUND
Anatomic variants of the uterine artery are rare, with the absence of one of the uterine arteries presumably being the most abundant variant. A duplicated uterine artery is mentioned in the medical literature, but to the best of our knowledge, an angiographic study has never been published. A partially duplicated uterine artery is an extremely rare variant not previously mentioned in the literature, and it could lead to technical difficulties or cause problems in various gynecological interventions.


METHODS
We present the case of a 45-year-old Caucasian woman with a uterine fibroid and typical fibroid-related symptoms who came to our department to get treated with fibroid embolization. During the procedure, angiography revealed a partial or segmental duplicated left uterine artery. This exceptionally rare anatomic variant proved to be beneficial for the safety of the embolization in our case; however, it is far more likely that such a variant would be unfavorable in some types of gynecological operative and minimally invasive techniques.


CONCLUSIONS
Knowledge of the anatomic variant of a partially duplicated uterine artery is important, especially for gynecologists performing minimally invasive surgical procedures.
Department of Radiology, Bethesda-Hospital Duisburg, Heerstrasse 219, 47053, Duisburg, Germany. info@myom-therapie.de.
Gernot
G
Rott
Department of Radiology, Bethesda-Hospital Duisburg, Heerstrasse 219, 47053, Duisburg, Germany.
Frieder
F
Boecker
D063405:Anatomic Variation; D000792:Angiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007889:Leiomyoma / Q000601:surgery; D008875:Middle Aged; D055988:Uterine Artery / Q000002:abnormalities* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D055357:Uterine Artery Embolization / Q000379:methods
Anatomic variant; Duplicated artery; Uterine artery; Uterine artery embolization; Uterine fibroid embolization; Vascular anomaly