Sao Paulo: A human being with three kidneys? Sounds bizarre and unbelievable, right?
Well, a Brazilian man from Sao Paulo has, indeed, been found to have three kidneys.
How was this rarest of rare medical cases – less than 100 have been reported so far — discovered?
The 38-year-old man visited a hospital for a check-up after experiencing severe back pain. The doctors conducted a CT scan which revealed that he had a herniated or ‘slipped’ disk, according to a report by Live Science.
That was normal, but then the doctors noticed an unusual anatomical feature — he had three kidneys. There was a normal-looking kidney on his left side, but there were two fused kidneys located near the pelvis!
He didn’t have to be admitted and was allowed to go home after receiving oral painkillers for the back pain.
According to a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the condition arises during embryonic development when a structure that forms a single kidney splits in two. This rare condition is not known to cause any typical symptoms, so people aren’t aware of it unless they discover it some way or the other.
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