Hermaphroditism: an obsolete diagnosis?

Our aim was to assess to what extent the traditional term ‘hermaphrodite’ is still in use to describe ‘disorders of sex development’ (DSD) as per the terminology recommended by the 2006 Chicago Consensus Statement. For this purpose we systematically searched Pubmed and Scopus using the keywords hermaphroditism, hermaphrodite, pseudohermaphrodite, pseudohermaphroditism and intersex in the title and abstract. All prospective and retrospective observational cohort studies and case reports published between 2007-2015 using the old terminology were included. A total of 161 articles meeting the inclusion criteria were identified. The vast majority of the articles were case reports published during the period 2007-2009. The first author was frequently affiliated to a genetic or an internal medicine department and 55% of the articles were published by university or tertiary centres. We thus conclude that the use of the old nomenclature is significantly diminishing especially from 2010 on. This depicts a progressive but not complete implementation of the revised terminology in accordance with the recommendations of the Chicago Consensus Statement.