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Clitoroplasty: past, present and future

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Abstract

This paper reviews the history of clitoral surgery throughout the twentieth century. The changing operations, from amputation through to attempts to produce a normal clitoris mirror the changing attitudes and available knowledge. It also examines the current issues that arise out of available data on long-term outcomes of clitoroplasty.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. H. E. O’Connell for permitting us to use the anatomical sketch of female external genitalia, which was adapted from her thesis. We also thank publishers Springer-Verlag for allowing us to reproduce the illustrations of the surgical technique, which were first published in the Pediatric Surgery International in 1991.

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Correspondence to J. M. Hutson.

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Lean, W.L., Hutson, J.M., Deshpande, A.V. et al. Clitoroplasty: past, present and future. Pediatr Surg Int 23, 289–293 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00383-007-1893-y

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