Embryo removed from 2 month-old boy's abdomen

Newindpress.com, 15th March, 2008

CUTTACK: In a rare surgical feat, a dead embryo has been successfully removed from the abdomen of a two-a-half-month old boy by a team of doctors at a hospital here.The team of S C B Medical College Hospital comprising three surgeons and four paramedics operated upon the baby for four hours to remove the embryo weighing about one kg on Wednesday.Dateswar Hota, head of the urology department, today said it was a 'rarest of rare case' and for the first time in Orissa that such a developed embryo had been found in the abdomen of an infant."The infant was born with the embryo. Such type of a deformity is found in one among 10 lakh children," Hota said.Terming it as retroperitonial dermoid or terratoma which generally happens due to inclusion of plueritonent cell in the body, Hota said, "This cell accidentally entered the infant's body while still inside the womb and started growing." The embryo had developed bones, limbs, fingers and hair. As operation of this nature involved a lot of risk, prolonged planning had been done before the surgery, the doctor said.Hospital superintendent Trilochan Sahu said it was highly risky to perform such an operation on an infant.Born on December 23 at Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi district, the baby had a swollen abdomen since birth. Initially, doctors thought the swelling was due to growth of a benign tumour. But they were baffled when they found it was an embryo.Father of the baby, Khirod Gouda, took him to a local hospital but the doctors there could not diagnose his problem and referred the case to the Cuttack hospital. He was admitted to the hospital last week.The baby was now recuperating well after undergoing the surgery, Sahu said.