Doctors performing a surgery on a newborn Colorado boy to remove an apparent tumor were shocked to discover that the tumor was actually a tiny, almost perfectly formed foot as well as other body parts.

 

Dr. Paul Grabb, a pediatric neurosurgeon told the Associated Press, “it looked like the breech delivery of a baby, coming out of the brain. To find a perfectly formed structure (like this) is extremely unique, unusual borderline unheard of.”

 

A MRI performed on the baby, Sam Esquibel on his name, showed a microscopic tumor in his brain. He was just 3 days old. But while removing the growth, Dr. Grabb discovered it contained a nearly perfect foot and the formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh.

 

After the surgery, he said the condition was known as fetus in fetu, but, in previous cases, that has involved the torso, not the brain. It is a very rare congenital condition with a reported incidence of one in 500,000 live births. The condition involves the presence of a fetus enveloped inside its twin.

 

Very early in a monozygotic twin pregnancy, in which both fetuses share a common placenta, one fetus wraps around and envelops the other. The enveloped twin becomes a parasite, in that its survival depends on the survival of its host twin, by drawing on the host twin’s blood supply. The parasitic twin has no brain and lacks some internal organs, and as such is usually unable to survive on its own.
 
The condition causes the host to look pregnant and can occur in both males and females.

 

Such rare cases always draw media attention. No further than January this year a two-month-old baby girl in Medan Indonesia had a five-month-old fetus removed from her stomach.

 

In May, surgeons at the pediatric department at Larisa General Hospital in Athens removed the fetus of an underdeveloped twin from the stomach of a nine-year-old girl. She came to the hospital complaining of terrible abdominal pains. Surgeons examined the girl and removed a growth they later found to be an embryo more than two inches long.

 

However, the most popular case of fetus in fetu was diagnosed in June 1999, when Sanju Bhagat from Nagpur, India had his parasitic twin removed after he had carried him for 36 years inside his body. His stomach was so swollen that he looked as if nine months pregnant and he barely could breathe. He also made a full recovery after the surgery.