Normal Female Prepuce

Abstract

In the past a few attention was paid in literatures and social informations towards the normal and abnormal female clitoris and prepuce, only during the second half of the twentieth century, the stream of data and debates about external female organs start to emerge, but sometimes these informations are inaccurate or not conclusive, at the main time the absence of accepted terms of the intimate parts of the female genitalia can influence the meaning of descriptions. A detailed understanding of the normal anatomy of the female external genital tract in general, clitoris and prepuce in particular is necessary to reconstruct patients with intersex and other genital anomalies and to achieve a favorable outcomes. Also in male-to-female genital sex reassignment surgery, the clitoris, its prepuce, and the labia minora remain among the most difficult structures to construct. However until recently the normal pediatric female genital anatomy was not well described, even there is no universal agreement about the terminology of some parts of these organs, also in many researches and illustrations there is some confusion between clitorial and preputial anatomy, anomalies and functions. The female prepuce, which is homologue to the male prepuce has a special and intricate anatomy, it projects at the front of the labial commissure, where the edges of the labia meet at the base of the clitoris; it forms as part of the external folds of the labia minora and partially covers the clitorial glans and external shaft. There is considerable variation in how much of the glans protrudes from the hood and how much is covered by it, ranging from completely covered to fully exposed. Many textbooks describe the female prepuce as the only distal portion, the clitorial hood, but actually the prepuce in female is formed of three distinct parts: the base, which is in continuity proximally with mons pubis and cover the most proximal part of the clitoris, preputial body covering the shaft of the clitoris, and the term clitorial hood is reserved for the only cutaneous and nearly circular fold at the loose end of this prepuce.