Can a person be born with two faces?
(NEWSER) – As far as rare births go, this is one of the rarest: twins born with a single body but two faces. It’s a condition called cranial duplication or “diprosopus” — Greek for “two faces” — and only 35 such births are known to have occurred.
How many cases of diprosopus are there?
[1,2] The prevalence of diprosopus is 2/100,000 births and constitutes 0.4% of all types of conjoined twins. [1] The anomaly is common in female than in male. Till date, only 36 such cases have been reported in the world literature with only a few case reports from India.
What causes diprosopus twins?
Although classically considered conjoined twinning (which it resembles), diprosopus is not normally due to the fusion or incomplete separation of two embryos. It is the result of abnormal activity by the protein SHH (sonic hedgehog).
Has any human been born with two heads?
Conjoined twins have been born in Brazil with two heads, two functioning brains and two backbones – but a single heart. The rare condition is thought to have occurred when one of the pair failed to fully develop in the womb.
Is diprosopus curable?
No treatment exists to cure diprosopus, although therapeutic abortion is sometimes an option if the condition is discovered early enough in the pregnancy. Because of the rarity of diprosopus, there are few treatment options or corrective surgery techniques documented.
Is Manar alive?
March 26, 2006Manar Maged / Died
Manar died on March 26, 2006, fourteen months after the surgery, just days before her second birthday, due to a severe infection in her brain. On January 20, 2021, a baby was born with two heads, at the Elias Hospital in Bucharest, Romania, but died some hours after it was born.
What gene causes diprosopus?
More recent theories include duplication of neural crest cell derivatives and mutations of the Dix homeobox gene [3, 4]. A spectrum of diprosopus exists from a duplication of only the nose to complete facial duplication similar to that of our patient [5].
Has a human ever been born with two heads?
Twins born with two heads, but sharing one body, are known as dicephalic parapagus. It affects around one in a million births.
What is a craniofacial duplication called?
Diprosopus (Craniofacial Duplication) Diprosopus is a congenital defect also known as craniofacial duplication. The exact description of diprosopus refers to a fetus with a single trunk, normal limbs, and facial features that are duplicated to a certain degree.
How common is facial duplication in humans?
Duplication of facial features or structures, such as noses, mouths or ears, is very rare, the report said. Around 35 cases of partial or complete facial duplication have been reported since 1900.
What is duplication of the oral cavity and mandible?
Duplication of the oral cavity and mandible: a rare congenital craniofacial anomaly Share: Reddit Share Report an errorEditorial standards and policiesWhy you can trust CTV News
What causes craniofacial duplication in chickens?
Another possible cause for the anomaly is an increase in the expression of the protein Sonic hedgehog (SHH), which is essential for craniofacial patterning during development. In experiments on chicks, researchers replicated many of the phenotypes associated with craniofacial duplication by exposing the embryos to an excess of SHH.