50 year-old Calcified feotus discovered in 90 year-old woman in Chile

A 90year-old woman in San Antonio, Chile was recently found to be carrying a 50year-old feotus in her hip cavity. According to Efe News quoted by BBC News in a report, the feotus was discovered when the old woman had a fall and was subsequently rushed to the hospital for medical examination where doctor recommended a bone x-ray to determine the impacts of the fall on her.

But, the x-ray revealed something more and unusual, as the hip X-ray revealed a 2kilo (4.4-pound) feotus in tucked away in her hip cavity. On close examination, Margo Vargas Lazo who is the hospital director reportedly said that the calcified feotus was “extraordinarily rare, large and developed,  and had probably been there at least 50 years”.

Calcified feotus is known as a lithopedion in the medical world and it occurs when a feotus dies during pregnancy and then becomes calcified outside the uterus. Many women go about their normal lives without being aware of the presence of the foetus in their bodies until decades later or never. 

The good news is that, Sao Paulo Medical Journal in a volume published in 2000 noted that the lithopedion cases occur in just 1.5 to 1.8 percent of the abdominal pregnancies occur and incidence are 1 in 11,000. The Journal stated further that: there have been less than 300 cases in 400 years of world medical literature. It also found that two-thirds of the diagnosis happened in women over 40 with the period of feotus retention ranging between 4 and 60 years.

The old woman was discharged some hours later with feotus still in her as the risk of removing it through surgical operation will be too high bearing her age in mind.