'Parasitic twin' to be removed from 3-year-old
Doctors in Peru are scheduled to remove a 700 gram "parasitic twin" from the belly of a three-year-old boy.
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Doctors in Peru have found a "parasitic twin" in the stomach of a three-year-old boy, and plan to surgically remove the tissue.
Dr Carlos Astocondor of the medical team at Las Mercedes Hospital in the northern port of Chiclayo said the condition occurs in about one of every 500,000 live births.
He said the partially formed foetus, in the stomach of Isbac Pacunda, weighed 700 grams and was 25 centimetres long.
"Parasitic twin" ... Leonidas Pacunda carries his son Isbac on his shoulders. Photo: AP
Astocondor said the brain, heart, lungs and intestines never developed after the foetus was absorbed by the other foetus inside the mother's womb.
He said it had some hair on the cranium, eyes and some bones.
PA