Mumbai: In an extremely rare medical case that stunned the healthcare world, a man from Nagpur was found to have been carrying the foetus of his own twin brother inside his abdomen for nearly 35 years.
Sanju Bhagat, a resident of Nagpur, had suffered from an unusually swollen stomach since childhood. Believing it to be a common health issue, he ignored the condition for years. However, in 1999, when he was 36 years old, the swelling began putting pressure on his lungs, causing severe breathing difficulties. He was then admitted to a hospital in Mumbai.
Doctors initially suspected that Bhagat had a massive tumour in his abdomen and decided to perform surgery.
However, the operation revealed a shocking discovery. During surgery, doctors drained several litres of fluid from his abdomen. They later found bones, limb-like structures, hair and teeth inside his stomach.
What doctors had initially believed to be a tumour turned out to be the partially developed foetus of his twin sibling that had remained inside his body for decades. In medical terminology, the condition is known as Fetus in fetu.
This extremely rare condition occurs during the early stages of pregnancy when one twin foetus becomes trapped inside the body of the other twin. The absorbed foetus cannot fully develop into a baby, but it continues to grow partially by drawing blood supply from its sibling's body.
Globally, only around 100 to 200 such cases have been documented so far, and the condition continues to remain a subject of major medical research.