Doctors in India have carried out a rare and life-changing surgery to remove a 17-year-old boy’s “parasitic” twin.
Parasitic twins occur when one foetus stops developing but remains attached and dependent upon its twin, with such cases thought to occur in just 1 in 100,000 births.
As few as 50 such cases have been documented in medical literature worldwide and in those cases the surgery had been attempted on younger children, Dr Asuri Krishna, who led the team which carried out the latest “breakthrough” surgery in Delhi, told the BBC.
Prior to the surgery, the teenager from a remote village in Uttar Pradesh had lived with two fully formed legs, buttocks and external genitalia protruding from his abdomen, in which doctors said he was capable of feeling pain, touch and changes in temperature.
The teenager, who is said to have faced stigma as a result of his condition, said “a new world has opened up” to him following the surgery on 8 February, telling the Indian Express: “I couldn't travel anywhere or do any physical activity.”
He added: “I hope to study and get a job. A new world has opened up to me.”
Dr Krishna, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), said that his team had to rely on their “intuition, skill and knowledge” given the lack of existing medical literature to guide them during the surgery.
The doctors first carried out scans which revealed that the parasitic twin was attached to the teenager’s breastbone and was receiving blood from a vessel in his chest – but did not have a significant connection with other major organs such as the liver or kidneys, Dr Krishna told the BBC. A cyst was also discovered in the teenager’s abdomen.
“The biggest challenge was the rarity of this condition. No one had seen this prior to this. However with meticulous planning and imaging we were able to construct a surgical plan,” he told The Independent.
The surgery was carried out in two parts, the first of which involved removing the parasitic limb, which required the surgeons to meticulously separate a mesh of shared blood vessels, nerves and tissues.
“One of the major concerns was possibility of involvement of the host kid internal organs which fortunately there was none,” said Dr Krishna.
The second part of the surgery involved removing the cyst in the teenager’s abdomen, extracting it from his abdominal wall, bowel, and liver.
While the teenager’s blood pressure dropped dangerously, as 30 to 40 per cent of his blood flowed to the parasitic twin, the doctors said they were prepared for this and were able to swiftly stabilise him.
“Seventeen years of stigma and suffering – ended in just two and a half hours,” Dr Krishna later wrote on social media.
“Our team at AIIMS Delhi successfully removed a 16 kg parasitic twin from a young boy from Unnao, freeing him from a rare and challenging condition.”
He added: “Four days post-surgery, he walked out of the hospital – ready to reclaim his life. This is the power of medical science and teamwork, transforming not just a body but a future.”
