A ONE-YEAR-OLD baby girl from India who had a parasitic twin weighing nearly 8lb living inside her body has had a successful operation to remove the growth.
Little Nisha was having trouble breathing and feeding, had a huge swollen stomach, and was unable to gain weight – because the foetus was crushing her organs.
The 15-month-old was brought into hospital in Mettupalayum by her mum Sumathi and dad Raji, who had no idea how severe Nisha’s condition was.
Surgeons performed an ultrasound on Nisha and discovered a HUGE cystic lesion which was taking up the whole of her abdomen, and displacing her organs to the right corner of her stomach cavity.
Nisha’s left kidney was plastered onto the cystic mass and her left colon, spleen, pancreas and bowels were all pushed aside.
Doctors at Sri Ganapathy Krishna Hospital spoke to the Times of India about Nisha’s parents who, like many Indian adults, are daily wage workers.
They said: “It was only after the child began having issues breathing and having food and the stomach had grown to a noticeably abnormal size did they go to a private doctor in Erode.”
Experts thought Nisha’s growth was a large cyst, weighing 3.5kg – and referred her to a paediatric and laparoscopic surgeon, Dr D Vijayagiri.
What is a parasitic twin?
* Identical twins are conceived from one single egg, which later separates.
* This doesn’t always go smoothly – sometimes resulting in conjoined or parasitic twins.
* Foetus-in-fetu is when one twin gets trapped within the other, normally occurring early during pregnancy.
* The trapped foetus becomes a parasite, feeding on its twin’s blood supply to stay alive, and causing great pain for the carrier.
* Normally the baby will have an abdominal mass, although there have been cases of the lump being found in the brain or scrotum.
* Most cases are caught while the twin is a baby or toddler.
This doc then diagnosed Nisha with foetus-in-fetu, a condition where a parasitic twin lives inside the host twin’s body – and feeds off their blood supply.
Dr Vijayagiri said: “The surgery to perform is a highly complicated one and technically demanding because the parasitic twin will be densely adherent to the host organs.”
Only one in 10 MILLION patients develop the condition – and if anything went wrong during surgery the host’s organs could be permanently damaged, and would have to be removed.
After just two hours, the surgeons had carefully dissected the cyst and removed it from it from Nisha’s body, and she is now recovering at home with mum and dad.
Parasitic twins are surrounded by amniotic fluid and their own amniotic sacs.
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