EXCLUSIVE Girl, 1, is found to have a FETUS growing in her skull that was once her twin sister READ MORE: Conjoined twins open up about what it's like to share a body By Maiya Focht Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com Published: 19:30 EDT, 10 July 2024 | Updated: 19:33 EDT, 10 July 2024 e-mail 2 View comments A one year old girl in China was born with a fetus trapped inside her skull, doctors revealed in a new case report. Neurosurgeons performed surgery on the child, who was suffering from severe head swelling and developmental delays.
But she passed away within a fortnight because the damage to her brain was too severe to survive. This exceedingly rare condition, known scientifically as fetus in fetu, affects roughly 1 in every 500,000 births . Only 18 cases of this occurring within the skull have ever been reported.
The one year old girl went into surgery and had part of her skull removed so that doctors could excise the tissue After the tissue was removed from the brain, the patient never recovered, succumbing to a series of severe seizures. The scans show her brain after the surgery Doctors don't understand yet what causes it. But they know it occurs during development inside the womb - when identical twins, formed when two eggs split, don't separate completely.
Then, one twin gets stuck inside the other, and may continue developing features like fingernails, hair and limbs. In 80 percent of cases, the absorbed fetal tissue gets lodged in the abdomen, where doctors have a .
