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A ONE-year-old girl with a fast swelling head passed away just days after doctors discovered a foetus that was once her twin sister growing in her skull. The toddler was admitted to hospital due to her growing skull and inability to sit up or stand. She also had delays in motor skills and speech development, only able to say “mum”.

After scans revealed that the baby girl's symptoms were cause by a feotus - which had a spine, organs and fingers - growing in her brain, neurosurgeons removed the embryo from her skull. But the one-year-old passed away just 12 days after the surgery, as the damage to her brain was too severe. Her incredibly rare condition is known as fetus in fetu (FIF), or parasitic fetus, occurring in about one in 500,000 births.



It's a rare developmental abnormality in which a malformed fetus is found within the body of the other twin - usually in the abdomen. But foetuses have also been found in other unusual locations, such as the skull, pelvis and mouth. Less than 200 cases have been reported in medical literature.

The condition is nearly 100 percent fatal when it occurs in the head, Xuewei Qin and Xuanling Chen, study authors and anesthesiologists from Peking University International Hospital in Beijing, China, wrote in the American Journal of Case Reports . "FIFs remain a mystery, and their causes and mechanisms may be related to environmental pollution, genetics, low temperatures, pesticide exposure during early pregnancy, and other factors," they sai.

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