In a rare surgery, a foetus was removed from an infant at Dr B.C. Roy Memorial Hospital for Children. The female infant, Ashrafi, was born with the foetus in March 2009 in Malda. But it had not come under the notice of the doctors then. With the passage of time, the foetus grew inside her stomach and formed a tumour weighing around 1 kg, said medical superintendent-cum-vice principal of the hospital Mrinal Kanti Chatterjee. “We call it
foetus-in-foetu. This happens when the second embryo of a twin gets stuck to the first instead of moving into the uterus. While the first embryo grows to become a foetus in the womb, the second embryo also becomes a foetus but within the first one and remains there without any life after the delivery,” Dr Chatterjee explained.
Kaushik Saha, head of the department of paediatric surgery at the hospital, said: “The patient started feeling uneasy as her stomach grew big looking abnormal. Such cases are very rare. Only one such case is found in around 50,00,000 deliveries.”
On May 6, 2010, Ashrafi was admitted to the hospital in Beliaghata for treatment. “An ultra sonography test revealed the tumour in her stomach. For further examination, she underwent a CT Scan which imaged a foetal structure with scull bones, spine and muscles in her stomach,” Dr Saha added.
On Wednesday morning, Dr Saha removed the foetus from Ashrafi’s stomach in a two-and-half-hour long surgery.