Girl To Have 'Spare' Arm Removed

Posted by JTPednaud in Medicine on November 21, 2007 at 12:02 pm


Ren Xin, 11, will have the extra limb removed by surgeons in Beijing next week. Chinese media has reportedly quoted doctors as saying that there had been less than 20 cases of similar conditions reported around the nation.

In a similar case earlier this month, doctors in India successfully removed four extra limbs from two-year-old Lakshmi, making headlines worldwide.

A year ago, a similar case was reported in Shanghai. Liu Junjie had his third arm successful removed in June of 2006.

Read the full article here. Via BoingBoing


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3 comments to "Girl To Have 'Spare' Arm Removed"

  1. Sid Morrison
    November 21st, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    Hey, Red Chinese doctors have been removing "extra" kidneys, livers, &c. from prisoners for years... Nothing new for them.

  2. Mig
    November 21st, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    This is amazing. I have never heard of such a medical condition before. And 20 similar cases all around the nation is enough to worry us. Were the other 20 operations successful?
    My prayers are with the little Ren Xin.

  3. Suzie
    November 21st, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    It's really not that strange. It's most likely because of a parasitic twin, see explination from Wikipedia:
    A parasitic twin (also known as an asymmetrical or unequal conjoined twin) is the result of the processes that produce vanishing twins and conjoined twins, and may represent a continuum between the two. Parasitic twins occur when a twin embryo begins developing in utero, but the pair does not fully separate, and one embryo maintains dominant development at the expense of the other. Unlike conjoined twins, one ceases development during gestation and is vestigial to a mostly fully-formed, otherwise healthy individual twin. The undeveloped twin is defined as parasitic, rather than conjoined, because it is incompletely formed or wholly dependent on the body functions of the complete fetus.


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