In what could be said to be a rare medical phenomenon, a baby has been born with two penises but no anus.
In medical parlance, the rare occurrence is called diphallia.
It was gathered that one of the penises is 1cm bigger than the other. Only 100 cases of diphallia have even been recorded in medical literature
The Pakistani boy’s penises are ‘normal-shaped’, according to doctors. The extraordinarily rare case in a medical journal, MailOnline reported.
The boy was also able to pass urine ‘from both orifices’, the surgeons in Islamabad revealed.
Medics left both members intact, but did not reveal why.
They did, however, create an opening via a colonoscopy so that he could pass stools.
Writing in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports, the team claimed that the chances of having diphallia is one in six million.
Only 100 cases have even been recorded in medical literature, with the first dating back to 1609.
Doctors who treated the boy said 1 percent of sufferers also have a defect. This affects their anus or rectum.
But they did not state if that meant this child was the world’s first-ever case of this defect, as their numbers would suggest.
The boy, born after 36 weeks, was treated at the Children’s Hospital at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.
His parents took him to the hospital’s emergency department straight after he was born. But they had no family history of any birth defects.
Doctors examining him spotted that he had no anal opening and two ‘well-formed phalluses’, one of which was 1.5cm, while the other was 2.5cm.
One bladder, two urethras
Scans revealed that he had a single bladder attached to two urethras. This means he passed urine from both penises.
Surgeons diverted one end of his colon through an opening in the lower left side of the abdomen. This will allow him to defecate.
The boy was monitored for two days following surgery. He was then discharged and a follow-up appointment arranged.
It is unclear how diphallia occurs, and there is no known single risk factor. But having two penises is thought to happen by chance when genitalia develops in the womb.
Patients can have complete diphallia, which is when both penises are well developed. Or partial diphallia, when one penis is smaller or deformed.
