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A young woman in India has lived unconsciously with one of the rarest and most troubling health problems in nearly two decades, according to her doctors. According to a case report published this week, the woman allegedly housed a bag containing her growing "twin" in her abdomen for 17 years. The twin had hair, teeth and even a spine.
Formally known as the fetus in the fetus, it is thought that this condition occurs when one of two twins is wrapped by the other very early in the pregnancy. The fetus does not develop its own nervous system or brain, but it is still able to live. And he feeds on his brothers and sisters, becoming essentially a parasite. According to another theory, the second "fetus" is actually a complex form of tumor called teratoma; these tumors can develop different types of tissue at once, including hair and teeth.
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Whatever the cause of the disease, it usually ends in miscarriage because of the lack of nutrition available to the intact fetus. But even when someone survives, the disease is usually detected quickly after birth or early childhood. According to the woman's doctors, so far only seven other cases of adults living with a fetal twin had been reported. And until now, they were all men.
The ordeal of the woman, detailed by her doctors in BMJ Case Reports, really began five years before visiting them. It was at that time that she and her family noticed for the first time that she had a hard, misshapen bump around her belly. Over the next five years, the size gradually increased and caused him periodic pain. By the time the 17-year-old woman visited the doctors, she was unable to eat much before feeling full, probably because the mass had begun to put pressure on her internal organs.
At the initial physical examination, the size was suspected to be a tumor. In a sense, it was. But when they did a scan on the mass, they found calcium deposits that looked like "the shape of the vertebrae, ribs, and long bones," and the more macabre truth was finally discovered. The doctors then went to work to remove it.
According to the report, the contents of the tumor "consisted of hairs, mature bones, and other parts of the body." These body parts included "many teeth and structures resembling buds of limbs". Its size – 36 × 16 × 10 centimeters – make it the largest ever found in a case of adult fetus in fetu.
Fortunately, with the departure of the mass, the woman recovered quickly and without incident, and two years later, she is still fine.
"I feel very good and my abdomen is now flat and my parents are also very happy," she wrote in a patient perspective included in the report.
In a troubling finale to this strange story, doctors have not been able to find the last cellular trace of the patient's "twin". There is little chance that some of these cells behave like cancer and become uncontrollable. To mitigate this risk, doctors announced that they would observe the girl every year for signs of trouble.
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