woman 81 years old Last week he went to a Brazilian hospital due to an infection caused by a fall. During extensive examinations, including a CT scan, doctors discovered something surprising in her abdomen: stone fruit who remained there for 40 years.
This is a case of lithopedia. This is a strange phenomenon that has been reported about a few times. 300 cases in history. Unfortunately, this woman died during an operation to remove a stone from her womb, but this is not the most common. They are usually removed surgically and patients can move on with their lives.
The problem is that this woman was already older, had suffered an infection and had managed without traditional medicine for a long time. Some media reports that belonged to the indigenous group, so I usually had access to natural remedies. For this reason, he went to the hospital too late. Of course, the fact that it took so long to discover a stone fetus in her womb is connected with more than just this. In fact, there are many cases of lithopedia that have been discovered decades after their occurrence.
From ectopic pregnancy to fetal stone
A ectopic pregnancy This occurs when the embryo, instead of implanting in the uterus, does so in other abdominal areafor example, the fallopian tubes or ovaries. Logically, these pregnancies cannot come to term. Therefore, as soon as they are detected, it is important to stop the pregnancy. If detected in early pregnancy, administration of methotrexate, a drug that stops the pregnancy process. Thus, generally, the few embryonic cells that were present are reabsorbed by the body and no intervention is required. In cases where pregnancy is at a later stage, it is necessary remove it surgically.
Currently, in both cases, the patient is monitored to ensure that pregnancy hormones decrease over time. If not, there are still some fetal cells left, so more methotrexate will need to be administered.
Such observations had not been made before, so it was simply expected that if something remained, it would be absorbed. And this is exactly what happens in most cases. However, sometimes the embryo may continue to develop until it reaches a point where it no longer progresses, but dehydrates, mummifies and calcifies. This is what is known as lithopedia or, colloquially, as stone fruit
The first case was described in 10th century Arab surgeon Albukasis in the medical encyclopedia. Since then, about 300 cases have been described in the scientific literature. Currently, most of them occur in older women in whom an ectopic pregnancy was not detected at that time or who were simply waiting for its resorption.
Other cases of lithopedia
This Brazilian woman is not the oldest woman to have a fetus with stones in her stomach. For example, in 2015, a woman’s case 92 years old who carried the stone fruit with her for more than half a century. Another older case was also identified in Brazil in a woman 84 years old.
Usually these are older women, like one of 77 years old diagnosed in Portugal in 2014 or in one of 71 years oldagain in Brazil, the situation was complicated by intestinal obstruction.
Cases have also been identified in middle-aged women, such as a Congolese refugee diagnosed in the United States in 50 years. Or even in very young women, such as a woman 28 years, from the Republic of Angola, who were diagnosed in Cuba in 2012. In general, they tend to come from countries where access to health care is difficult. It is assumed that lithopedia is 0.0054% of total pregnancies and 1.5% to 1.8% of abdominal pregnancies. There are few of them, but there should be fewer and fewer of them, since the ideal is to detect an ectopic pregnancy in time and prevent calcification of the fetus. Perhaps one day they will become a joke of the past. But for now, the stone embryos are still an actual reality, no matter how much they seem to be part of the film’s plot.
Source: Hiper Textual
