Thoracic heteropagus conjoined twins associated to an omphalocele: Report of a case and complete review of the literature

Abstract

Heteropagus twins are an extremely rare event with an incidence of 1–2 million live births that represents, sometimes, a real challenge for paediatric surgeons. The majority of cases have complete or partial duplication of the pelvis and/or lower extremities. Thoracic heteropagus conjoined twins is a rare condition in which a grossly defective foetus (the parasite) is attached to the thorax of the main foetus (the autosite). We describe a case of a parasitic heteropagus attached at the chest wall with a rare presentation of giant exomphalos on the autosite. In this situation, the separation procedure was simple after a well-done anatomic study using X-ray, ultrasonography, magnetic resonance and echocardiogram are performed.

Keywords

• Asymmetric conjoined twins
• heteropagus twins
• incomplete conjoined twins
• omphalocele
• omphalopagus parasite
• parasitic twins