Doctors at AIIMS, Bibinagar perform rare human tail surgery on infant
The human tails are very rare with 40 cases reported so far in the world. This case in Hyderabad is reportedly the 41st.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 16 July 2024 10:50 AM IST
Telangana: Doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bibinagar have successfully performed a rare human tail surgery on a 3-month-old male baby.
Since the surgery was performed in January, doctors had to wait for seven months to check vitals before declaring the procedure successful. Seven months after the surgery, the baby was found with no complications. So the operation was considered a success and the details of the rare surgery were announced.
According to Dr. Shashank Panda, Head of, Department of Pediatric Surgery, they performed a rare human tail surgery. It was about 15 cm and located in the lumbosacral region of a child.
The baby has associated occult spinal dysraphism from S1 to S5 vertebrae and anchored spinal cord syndrome with a risk of neurological deficit requiring meticulous modification of surgical technique.
It took two and half hours for a three-member doctors team to perform the surgery on the boy in January 2024 and remove the tail.
"After removing it, we reconstructed the child's spinal canal. There was Spina Bifida connected with the spinal cord which was dissected meticulously with repair of Dura. The postoperative recovery was uneventful. The patient is having no neurological deficit and good wound cosmesis at six months post-surgery follow-up. So, the operation was considered a success and the details of the rare surgery were announced," said Dr Shashank Panda.
Rare cases:
The human tails are very rare with approximately 40 cases reported to have been operated successfully so far in the world. This case in Hyderabad is reportedly the 41st.
In recent times, a human tail case was reported in China, but it took one year for the doctors to perform the surgery. However, doctors in AIIMS performed surgery on a three-month-old boy and removed the rail.
Another such case was reported in Odisha in 2022. The Neurosurgeons at the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital removed the tail in a rare surgery in Bhubaneswar.
