Doctors successfully removed a parasitic fetus from a seven-year-old girl last Friday, a representative from the Dong Nai Pediatric Hospital said on Saturday.

The tumor was identified as a parasitic twin with a vertebral column, arms, legs, internal organs and a head with no brain. The fetus weighed 1.2 kilograms and took up half the girl’s abdominal cavity.

The mass was removed during a two-hour operation on October 17.

Doctors said the condition, known as fetus in fetu, is a rare abnormality occurring once out of every 500,000 live births when a fetus becomes enveloped inside its twin in utero.

The parasitic twin can develop an entire organ system within the host twin but lacks critical functioning of many vital organs and is essentially considered a tumor.

In related news, doctors from Hanoi’s Vietnam National Hospital of Pediatrics removed a parasitic fetus from a six-month-old girl earlier this month.

Source: Thanh Nien