A four-year-old boy was operated upon for a rare anomaly at the Government Children's Hospital attached to the Institute of Child Health here on Wednesday. The child is in good condition now.
According to police sources, the boy's father Rajesh is an agricultural labourer belonging to Veeraloor village in Tiruvannamalai.
The boy was referred to the hospital after diagnosed with having a mass of flesh in the abdomen region. At the hospital, a team of doctors removed the mass surgically and sent it to laboratory for confirming their suspicions that it could be a foetus.
Director of the Institute P. Ramachandran said such anomalies are rare. “The condition is known as teratoma and is not gender specific. Sometimes, you can see bone structures or it can be a rare anomaly of foetus in foetus. The mass has been sent for testing to the histopathology laboratory in the hospital and to another independent centre as well. The results will be available after five days,” Dr. Ramachandran said.
According to the surgeon who conducted the surgery, this is the second time in 10 years that the hospital has treated such a condition.
