Man With Twin Living Inside Him--A Medical Mystery
Another Person Lived Inside a Man for Nearly Four Decades
Sanju Bhagat's stomach was once so swollen he looked nine months pregnant and could barely breathe. Living in the city of Nagpur, India,
Bhagat said he'd felt self-conscious his whole life about his big belly. But one night in June 1999, his problem erupted into something much larger than cosmetic worry. An ambulance rushed the 36-year-old farmer to the hospital. Doctors thought he might have a giant tumor, so they decided to operate and remove the source of the bulge in his belly. "Basically,
the tumor was so big that it was pressing on his diaphragm and that's why he was very breathless," said Dr. Ajay
Mehta of
Tata Memorial Hospital in
Mumbai. "Because of the sheer size of the tumor, it makes it difficult [to operate]. We anticipated a lot of problems."
Mehta said that he can usually spot a tumor just after he begins an operation. But while operating on
Bhagat,
Mehta saw something he had never encountered. As he cut deeper into
Bhagat's stomach, gallons of fluid spilled out -- and then something extraordinary happened. "To my surprise and horror, I could shake hands with somebody inside," he said. "It was a bit shocking for me." Removing the Mutated Body
One doctor recalled that day in the operating room. "He just put his hand inside and he said there are a lot of bones inside," she said. "First, one limb came out, then another limb came out. Then some part of genitalia, then some part of hair, some limbs, jaws, limbs, hair." Inside Bhagat's stomach was a strange, half-formed creature that had feet and hands that were very developed. Its fingernails were quite long. We were horrified. We were confused and amazed," Mehta said.
A Mutated Body Within a Body At first glance, it may look as if Bhagat had given birth. Actually, Mehta had removed the mutated body of Bhagat's twin brother from his stomach. Bhagat, they discovered, had one of the world's most bizarre medical conditions -- fetus in fetu. It is an extremely rare abnormality that occurs when a fetus gets trapped inside its twin. The trapped fetus can survive as a parasite even past birth by forming an umbilical cordlike structure that leaches its twin's blood supply until it grows so large that it starts to harm the host, at which point doctors usually intervene. According to Mehta, there are fewer than 90 cases of fetus in fetu recorded in medical literature.
erican doctor Anthony Gaspari at a news conference in Bandung, about a two-hour drive from capital city Jakarta. For Dede (who is known by his first name), what started as a simple wart on his knee as a teenager spiraled his life out of control when it became infected. Treelike growths gradually spread all over his legs, arms, chest and face. He became physically unable to do basic functions and everyday tasks.
