This is another thing that we had been unaware of until we were writing Lime 5. It's called fetal homograph, and it was described in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in their February 15, 1973 issue. It's a condition where fetal tissue remaining in the uterus begins to differentiate, growing into well-formed tissue.
One case involved a 20-year-old patient who underwent an abortion and continued to experience vaginal discharge for four months, eventually expelling fetal parts. She went to a doctor who examined her and noted what seemed to be a polyp protruding from the woman's cervix. The doctor removed it and examined it under a microscope. He noted that "the core of the polyp was composed mainly of what appeared to be fully differentiated brain tissue."
The Southern Medical Journal May, 1974 issue described a case where a woman showed a 6-centimeter mass in her cervix three months after a suction abortion. The woman's uterus was removed and the mass was found to be fetal muscle, bone, and cartilage that had been implanted in the uterus during the abortion.
It seems that this phenomenon might be called by a different name now, since I've been unable to find any further articles about it. The closest I can find is autograft or homograft. If anybody has access to a medical library I'd be grateful for anything you can find.
Watch Lime 5: Fetal Homograph(?) on YouTube.
No comments:
Post a Comment