10-month-old boy with 2 extra legs operated on

After a two hours and 15 minutes long surgery, a team of surgeons from KEM Hospital, on Friday, successfully completed an operation upon a 10-month-old boy born with four legs and two penises.

Dr Prashant Joshi, the pediatric and neonatal laparoscopic surgeon who led the surgery, said: “The difficulty level of the operation was heightened slightly by the fact that the boy is an infant.”

“It would have been easier if the child was just born because the limbs would have not been well-formed. But the parents were advised by the doctors in Vashim to wait till their son turned 10 to get the operation done. This was a misconception,” Dr Joshi added.

During the surgery, the doctors made elliptical incisions on the boy’s left buttock, where the two extra legs were protruding from.

“We were ready with three to four pints of blood. The arteries and veins that supply blood to the lower limbs branch out from the aorta of the heart. So, we were anticipating substantial loss of blood when removing the legs. Thankfully, there was no major blood loss.”

As the two extra legs were well formed, the orthopaedic surgeon had to use a bone saw to cut them off. A portion of the extra pelvis was also removed. The surgeons did not remove the entire pelvis because it was connected to the boy’s second urethra and penis.

The doctors still don’t know the exact cause of the extra limbs and organs. “We will get the histopathological report in 10 days and then we will know for sure,” said Dr Joshi.

The boy’s father was relieved. “I am happy that the operation went off and my son is doing well,” he said.