Ajmer (Rajasthan): In a rare case of foetus-in-fetu, doctors successfully removed a 12-week-old foetus from the stomach of a 13-month-old baby in Rajasthan's Ajmer city.
The surgery was carried out by doctors of the Paediatric Department at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JLN) & Hospital, in Ajmer, who succeeded in removing the 400-gram foetus from the baby's stomach after a 4-hour complicated surgery. The 'foetus in fetu' is a rare fetal developmental abnormality in which one malformed vertebrate foetus is enclosed within the body of another foetus.
Paediatric surgeon and head of the department, JLN Medical College, Dr Garima Arora told ETV Bharat on Tuesday they had discovered the foetus in fetu during the pregnancy of a woman from Ajmer. "During a routine USG of the woman, we came to know that there was a foetus inside the baby in her womb. The foetus inside the baby had even developed a spinal cord. So we researched further while advising the woman to approach us after her delivery," Dr Arora said.
Over a year after her delivery, the woman and her husband approached the doctors. "They were sceptical at first, as most parents would be in such a case. They wanted to be sure that their baby was safe. So we informed them about it and asked them to discuss and decide. They came back after a few weeks, and we went ahead with the surgery," she said.
According to Dr Arora, before they performed the surgery, the doctors studied some old cases and did a lot of research. "I think there are hardly a few hundred such cases in the world, and I am sure this is the first such case in Ajmer. So we took opinions from experts and accordingly prepared our surgery plan," she said.
Dr Arora said the surgery took around 4 hours as the location of the foetus was "tricky". "It was very close to some crucial vessels. So we had to be very slow and patient in removing it and ensuring that there was no harm to the baby harbouring it," she said. Such cases, she said, are not fatal, but very rarely the foetus can turn into a cancer. "So we have to guide the parents accordingly and tell them it is important to remove it," Dr Arora said.
Dr Dinesh Barolia, Dr Rohit Jain, Dr Diksha Nama and other doctors helped Dr Arora in the surgery.
In 2019, a similar case was seen in Rajasthan in which the foetus was removed from an 8-year-old boy.
Read More
