http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/4162649/ COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A pediatric neurosurgeon says a tumor he removed from the brain of a Colorado Springs infant contained a tiny foot and other partially formed body parts. Dr. Paul Grabb said he operated on Sam Esquibel at Memorial Hospital for Children after an MRI showed a microscopic tumor on the newborn's brain. Sam was 3 days old and otherwise healthy. Grabb said that while removing the growth, he discovered it contained a nearly perfect foot and the formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh. "It looked like the breach delivery of a baby, coming out of the brain," Grabb said. "To find a perfectly formed structure (like this) is extremely unique, unusual, borderline unheard of." Grabb isn't sure what caused the growth but says it may have been a type of congenital brain tumor. However, such tumors usually are less complex than a foot or hand, he said. The growth may also have been a case of "fetus in fetu" - in which a fetal twin begins to form within another - but such cases very rarely occur in the brain, Grabb said. Sam's parents, Tiffnie and Manuel Esquibel, said their son is at home now but faces monthly blood tests to check for signs of cancer or regrowth, along with physical therapy to improve the use of his neck. But they say he has mostly recovered from the Oct. 3 surgery. "You'd never know if he didn't have a scar there," Tiffnie Esquibel said.
I remember something similar to this a few years back. I seem to think it was a tumor in a grown man's belly. I'll have to see if Ken will google it for me. :mrgreen:
Warning: This is a graphic comment, not for the squeamish. No, not amazing, accept the fact it was in the brain and that the baby appears okay after it's removal. This is a teratoma tumor, aka dermoid cyst - they can be malignant. Typically, these tumors are quite small - about half the size of a golf ball and grow around female organs such as ovaries or fallopian tubes, but they can grow quite large - like the size of a football, and grow in other locations. While men can have them, more typically, women do. These tumors can reoccur too - if they have to be cut into segments in order to remove them (sometimes wrap around an organ or intestines) it is sometimes impossible not to miss tiny particles, which through the bodies hormones can cause regrowth of the tumor. Thus, most medical professionals have discounted the "twins" theory - (once dubbed the "tumor of the twins") in favor of it simply being a case of excess cells at the time of conception because unlike starfish, human bodies are not capable of regenerating the growth of a lost limb or vital organs such as eyeballs, which teratomas often contain. I consider myself an expert on this subject, as I have had a few of these removed thus far. The first in 1994, was found during an MRI - it was on my anterior(back side of) right kidney - it was quite large (rather than metrics, layman terms) the size of two huge grapefruit. It was like a jelly roll of skin, blood, teeth, hair and yes, a couple of eyeballs. It had to be sectioned into 3 segments to remove it and it was benign. The second one was removed just a year later in 1995, it was almost as large as the first one - and in the same place - regeneration was very fast. It contained the same things as the first one, but was surrounded by a sack of whole blood which was sort of protecting it. It needed to be sectioned into 5 segments to remove it and it was benign. The third one was in 2001 - this time while it was in the same place, but just a tad smaller, it's shape was elongated and it wrapped around my kidney and some of my intestines. It's contents, again was the same, and like the second one had the fluid filled membrane surrounding it. Some of the finest medical experts in NC consulted on this case as it was determined that since teratomas CAN change in nature ( meaning they can be benign once and regrow and be malignant ) that the odds were against another benign tumor and because they could see from numerous MRIs and CT scans that they would have to do some extensive work to remove it. During a double procedure, in which the first surgery took more than 10 hours - they removed sections, then removed my kidney, they removed all of the alien parts (my term for them) of the tumor, found my kidney to be by some miracle still 100% and then cleaned out the rest of the tumor remnants which required the loss of 18" of my intestines, then replaced my kidney. Then a GYN team began a total hysterectomy - the belief was that there was no choice - I had bi-lateral benign cysts on my ovaries which were no big deal normally, but there was a consensus among the specialists I'd seen that because of the hormones the female reproductive system generates, that they could be fueling the rapid growth of the teratomas. They likened the regrowth to having a bowl of unset jello (my innards) and having a sack that contained pebbles and grains of sand in it. When you cut the sack, its easy to see and remove the pebbles, but while you can get most of that sand, some of it is too small to see and it gets lost in the jello and since the sand - in my case - cells have memory. . .they can regrow. They had plenty of time to get the pathology done on my tumor and the plan was if it was malignant, they would remove all of my lymph nodes before closing up. I woke up with tubes still down my throat after 13 hours on the operating table (beat my spinal fusion by an hour) one incision that began just higher than mid torso, down to my navel and than a semi-quad cut around it that extended to 3 inches in front of my right hip and a second that was across my bikini area. While I was a mess, I'm grateful that they literally put Humpty Dumpty back together and that I still have my lymph nodes .
