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Analysis of the reproductive outcomes and the size of the unicornuate uterus measured by magnetic resonance imaging and their relationship

  • General Gynecology
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Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the relationship between the uterine size measured by pelvic magnetic resonance and reproductive outcome in women with a unicornuate uterus.

Methods

This was a retrospective study including 140 patients affiliated with unicornuate uterus diagnosed by the pelvic MR prior to their first pregnancy in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University from April 2010 to December 2017. All the length of the unicornuate uterus were re-measured and recorded by skilled radiologists during the study period. We divided all the 140 participants with complete pelvic MR imaging into four groups by the best reproductive outcomes, which refers to Group 1 (primary infertility, n = 21), Group 2 ( < 24 weeks’ gestation, n = 34), Group 3 (preterm delivery, 24–35 weeks’ gestation, n = 13), Group 4 ( ≥ 35 weeks’ gestation, n = 72), followed them up and then analyzed the data.

Results

Measurements of 140 patients with hemi-uteri were retrieved for analysis. The mean length of the uterine was 4.90  ± 0.56 cm. There were no significant differences in the uterine cavity length, cervical length, endometrial thickness and uterine wall thickness between the four groups while the uterine length (P = 0.001) was statistically significant. Women with uterine lengths  ≥  4.5 cm were more likely to experience full-term delivery compared with the other group (P = 0.001). Ordinal multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the uterine length [OR = 9.03 (95% CI: 2.90–28.13)] and uterine cavity length [OR = 0.32 (95% CI: 0.06–2.04)] were independent protective factors for better obstetric outcomes

Conclusion

The uterine length is a reliable prognostic factor for the gestational week of delivery and an appropriate antenatal surveillance factor of women with unicornuate uterus.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University for supporting in statistical analyses. The authors are grateful to Yuan He for her advice on the data analysis. The authors thank DXJ and KHQ for carefully reviewing the article.

Funding

This study was supported by the Chinese National Nature Sciences Foundation [grant number 81471416 and 81771524].

Author information

Author notes

  1. Xiao-qing Li and Hui-jun Qian contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Xiao-qing Li, Xu-yin Zhang, Shao-Fen Zhang, Ke-Qin Hua & Jing-Xin Ding

  2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Female Reproductive Endocrine Related Diseases, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Xiao-qing Li, Xu-yin Zhang, Shao-Fen Zhang, Ke-Qin Hua & Jing-Xin Ding

  3. Department of Radiology, Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Hui-jun Qian

  4. Public Health School of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Yuan He

Authors
  1. Xiao-qing Li
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Contributions

XQL: project development, data management, data analysis, and manuscript writing. HJQ: project development and data management. XYZ: data collection. SFZ: project development. YH: data analysis. KQH: data management. JXD: manuscript revise and project development. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ke-Qin Hua or Jing-Xin Ding.

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Conflict of interest

All the authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Gynecology, the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University [2018–18] and informed consent was obtained from each individual.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Li, Xq., Qian, Hj., Zhang, Xy. et al. Analysis of the reproductive outcomes and the size of the unicornuate uterus measured by magnetic resonance imaging and their relationship. Arch Gynecol Obstet 299, 1321–1330 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05106-y

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