Normal adult epididymis: evaluation with color Doppler US.

Objective: To reevaluate blood flow patterns in the normal epididymis with color Doppler sonography.

Methods: Twenty-seven healthy volunteers (aged 19-68 years) with no history of scrotal disease, infection, or surgery (including vasectomy) underwent gray-scale imaging, color Doppler imaging, and pulsed Doppler spectral analysis of the head, body, and tail of each epididymis. All volunteers had negative results of urinalysis.

Results: In each of the 54 epididymides, blood flow was detected with pulsed Doppler and color Doppler imaging 100% of the time in the head, body, and tail. The mean resistive indexes for the right epididymal head, body, and tail were 0.55, 0.55, and 0.58, respectively. Similar values for the left side were 0.54, 0.55, and 0.55, respectively. None of these values were statistically significantly different.

Conclusions: With current ultrasound imaging technology, epididymal flow was demonstrated not only in the head but also in the body and tail of the epididymides of all of our healthy volunteers. Thus, detection of flow in the epididymis at color Doppler imaging can be a normal finding and does not necessarily imply epididymitis.