'Fetus in fetu' condition: Nagpur man carrying twin inside not first

The story of a man from Nagpur, who looked pregnant due to his huge belly has shocked the nation. It turns out that the man actually had his twin sibling living inside him for 36 years, in a rare condition known as ‘fetus in fetu’. However, Sanju Bhagat, though a part of a rare condition, is not the only one.

What is fetus in fetu?

Fetus in fetu is a rare development abnormality in which a mass of tissue resembling a fetus forms inside the body of its twin.

The first case of fetus in fetu was described as early as 1808 by George William Young.

Sanju Bhagat is not the only one

While Sanju Bhagat’s case in indeed shocking, with an almost full grown human being retrieved from his body, the pregnant man is not the only person to be afflicted by the condition.

Back in 2020, as per a report in Science Direct Magazine, a girl from Bangladesh too was afflicted with the same condition. A nine-year-old girl came to doctors with abdominal pain and distension, which she had been suffering for about four years. There was a lump in her abdominal region, which apparently was increasing in size for the last 20 days before she was brought to the hospital.

On inspection she was found to have a fetus in fetu condition and after incision, a large fetus was found inside her abdominal region with two lower limbs including toes and nails.

Similarly, in 2021, two conditions were found in North Africa. The first case was for a 10-year-old girl that presented with anemia and abdominal mass, while the second case was for a 4-month-old boy that was diagnosed by ultrasound. In both cases, the patients had recognisable vertebrae, fetal organs and skin coverage.

Another case in 2021 cropped up in which, as per a report in BMC Pediatrics, a year-old boy was hospitalised and was found to contain, within him a complete bony structure, replete with a hip bone and femur.

In reality, fetus in fetu is an extremely rare condition in which malformed fetus is found most commonly inside a twin. It occurs in about 1 in 500,000 live births and less than 200 cases have been reported in medical literature.

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