A four-year-old Indian child has had the “fossilized” fetus of his twin removed from his womb. An extremely rare clinical case that is referred to as “fetus in fetus”.
A new case of fetus in fetus has been identified in the scientific literature. In India, a four-year-old child complained of severe stomach aches before being hospitalized in a facility in West Bengal, says the India Times.
Hands, nails, legs…
Suspecting an intestinal tumour, the doctors decided to give him an ultrasound before intervening surgically. Except that on the screen, they were able to discover inside the belly of the child an anomaly very far from their first diagnosis: a fetus, which they immediately removed.
This fetus had hands, legs, nails and a partially formed head, say the doctors. In fact, this was the little boy’s twin, which developed inside him during his four years of life.
A hundred cases in two centuries
In fact, during the gestation of twins, it happens that one of the two fetuses migrates inside the other. This anomaly, called “fetus in fetus”, was first described by the German anatomist Johann Friedrich Meckel at the end of the 18th century. Since then, a hundred cases have been reported in the literature. In general, both fetuses die before birth, but if this is not the case, the “parasitic” fetus may remain inside its host for years.
The fetus in fetus is distinguished from the teratoma by its composition, although for a long time the first was considered a declination of the second. The teratoma is a benign tumor made up of “pluripotent” cells, a kind of inheritance from the embryonic period when this type of cell is destined to become tissue (bone, hair, muscle, etc.).
The fetus in fetus already presents an organization such that one can observe vertebrae, limbs or even organic tissues (teeth, nails, hair…). It feeds on its surroundings (in this case, an ovary), but, of course, it has no beating heart or circulating blood.
Source: Journal of Indian Association of Pediatric Surgeons, Jan-March 2008
The World Health Organization has classified fetus in fetus as a variant of teratoma, a type of ovarian cancer. The inert fetus that remains in the body of the unborn baby can be fatal for the baby.
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