Ahmedabad: Fetus removed from 18-month-old girl

AHMEDABAD: An 18-month-old girl from Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh was brought to Civil Hospital for an unusual trouble – the girl had a swelling in her stomach, which turned out to be a fetus! In medical parlance, it was a rare case of fetus-in-fetu where one of the twins in the uterus is malformed and parasitic in nature and grows in another twin’s body.
Dr Rakesh Joshi, professor and head of the pediatric surgery department at Civil Hospital, said that Vidhi (name changed) is daughter of a jewellery shop owner. “The couple had got worried due to the swelling of her stomach. The CT scan revealed presence of the foetus. They went to hospitals and Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh but without success,” he said.

On July 22, the surgery was carried out by a team led by Dr Joshi, Dr Jaishree Ramji, Dr Trupti Shah and Dr Kiran Patel. The fetus was pressing her right kidney and renal vessels – thus if the foetus was not removed, it could have compressed other internal organs, said experts.
The foetus had formative brain and vertebral column, they added. “Fetus-in-fetu is a rare congenital abnormality having a prevalence of about one in 5 lakh live births. Across the world, there might be about 200 cases reported in literature. For us, it is the third such cases in over two decades,” said Dr Joshi.
“The surgery poses a great challenge as the mass is in relation to vital structures which requires meticulous dissection.”