Graphic Photos: Surgeons discover 3.5kg 'parasitic twin' in toddler's stomach

A one-year-old baby had a 3.5kg 'parasitic twin' removed from her stomach after her panicked parents rushed her to hospital with a breathing problems.

Baby Nisha's panicked parents rushed her to hospital after she wasn't feeding or gaining weight and her stomach had swollen.

Surgeons performed an ultrasound and discovered a huge cystic lesion occupying the whole of the abdomen, which was displacing her organs to the right corner of her stomach cavity.

Her left kidney was completely plastered to the cystic mass and her left colon, spleen, pancreas and bowels were pushed into the corner of her abdomen.

Nisha’s mother Sumathi and her father Raju, from Mettupalayam, India, had no idea how severe her condition was.

Doctors at Sri Ganapathy Krishna Hospital told the Times of India: “It was only after the child began having issues breathing and having food and the stomach had grown to a noticeably abnormal size did they go to a private doctor in Erode.”

Niche was referred to paediatric and laparoscopic surgeon Dr D Vijayagiri with what was thought to be a large cyst.

He later diagnosed her with foetus-in-fetu - where a parasitic twin resides inside the host twin and feeds off their blood supply.

Dr D Vijayagiri added: “The surgery to perform is a highly complicated one and technically demanding because the parasitic twin will be densely adherent to the host organs.”

The incredibly rare condition occurs in just one in ten million patients.

If anything goes wrong during surgery the host’s organs can be damaged and may have to be removed alongside the parasitic twin.

But during a successful two-hour surgery, surgeons carefully dissected the cyst and were able to remove it completely.

MirrorUK