Doctors in Peru to remove 'parasitic twin'

January 29, 2012 08:42 am | Updated October 18, 2016 01:10 pm IST - LIMA

Doctors in Peru have found a “parasitic twin” in the stomach of a 3-year-old boy, and plan to surgically remove the tissue on Monday.

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 weighs 700 grams and is nine inches long. 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 has some hair on the cranium, eyes and some bones.

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