10-month-old baby has foetus removed from its stomach in Indonesia

The Jakarta Post
Sat, Mar 25, 2017

A physician team from the West Nusa Tenggara Regional General Hospital (RSUD NTB) in Indonesia has removed an unborn foetus from the stomach of MAZ, a 10-month-old baby from East Lombok, on Saturday.

"Our physician team has performed surgery on the baby and managed to remove a 400-gram foetus. It was not fully developed. It's a boy," RSUD NTB director Lalu Hamzi Fikri said in a press conference in Mataram on Saturday.

Fetus in fetu is a condition, in which a foetus lives as a parasitic growth inside its identical twin brother or sister.

It is very rare; based on medical literature, there is one case for every 500,000 births.

Hamzi said the surgery took around one and a half hours, involving a team of specialist doctors.

They comprised surgery and child surgery specialists, an anesthesiologist, radiologist, obstetric gynecologist, anatomy pathologist, clinical pathologist and nutritionist.

He said MAZ was still undergoing a post-surgery treatment.

"The baby patient has recovered consciousness and is still in the ICU room," he added.

MAZ has been treated at the RSUD NTB since March 11.

The son of Usman, 50, and Asmani, 45, from Letok village, Sakra district, East Lombok, was referred there from the RSUD Selong, East Lombok, due to his swollen abdomen.

On March 15, the result of an examination conducted using a CT scan and radiology photo showed liquid and a foetus-like object on the patient's stomach.

A medical team from the RSUD NTB later confirmed that MAZ was suffered from foetus in fetu.