Surgeons remove ‘human tail’ baby boy
Surgeons at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) recently put their medical training to the test when they performed an unusual procedure on a youngster born with a “human tail.”
On June 18, the team, led by Chief Neurosurgeon Dr Amarnauth Dukhi, successfully removed the tail and rebuilt the 10-day-old boy’s spinal canal.
The GPHC believes that this surgery will allow the infant to develop normally.
The human tail, according to GPHC, is commonly regarded a marker of underlying pathology of unusual spinal dysraphism. Spina bifida occulta, meningocele, and spinal lipoma or tethered spinal cord are all reported manifestations of spinal dysraphism.
“The occurrence of the human tail is a phenomenon of great interest to both the lay and medical communities due to its extremely rare presentation.” As a tertiary medical institution dedicated to medical teaching and research, GPHC’s Neurosurgery department will bring this case to the global medical community for documentation and review, according to a statement.