US surgeons had to deal with a very unusual case, when they had to operate on a baby boy, believing he had a tumor on his brain, they found the partial formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh. The operation was successful and little Sam Esquibel is now recovering well.

 This is an exceptional case in medicine, the most logical explanation for the growth found in the brain being a case of “foetus in foetu”, meaning that a twin begins to form within its sibling. There are less than 100 cases of “foetus in foetu” in the written medical literature, and to find such an exceptional case, means that further study can be done, providing more explanation on why these abnormalities appear.

The baby is now at home, recovering well after the operation, and he will have to be tested on a regular basis to check if other tumors appeared and to see if he is evolving well after this extremely hard operation.

The baby will also have to do physical therapy in order to regain the use of his neck, as the operation affected the mobility in his neck. Doctors believe that the most probable explanation for the anomaly was a case of “foetus in foetu” but they also don’t exclude a case of congenital brain tumor or a teratoma, which can include tissue such as muscle and fat, and more rarely bone and teeth.

The most important thing right now is that the operation was successful and that the baby is recovering. This goes to show that the advancements in medicine are real and that difficult surgeries have a bigger success rate.