In an ‘exceptionally’ rare pregnancy, a foetus grows inside a Canadian woman’s liver

Team Udayavani, Dec 19, 2021, 11:36 AM IST

A 33-year-old Canadian lady was diagnosed with a foetus growing inside her liver.  Dr. Michael Narvey of the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba in Canada posted a video on social media revealing the medical case.

He said, “I thought I had seen it all: a 33-year-old woman comes in with a 14-day history of menstrual bleeding and 49 days since her last menstrual period. “On examination, what the doctor found was an ectopic pregnancy in the woman’s liver, reported The Sun.

When a fertilised egg gets lodged anywhere other than the uterine cavity, it is called an ectopic pregnancy. In a typical ectopic pregnancy, a fertilised egg becomes lodged in the Fallopian tube and begins to grow there, according to the Mayo Clinic. It can also be deposited on the ovaries, cervix, or abdominal wall in some cases. According to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, ectopic pregnancy in the liver is “very unusual.” Only 14 incidences of ectopic pregnancies in the liver were recorded worldwide between 1964 and 1999.

The doctor added, “We see these sometimes in the abdomen but never in the liver. This is a first for me.” Surgeons saved the woman’s life by surgically removing the foetus. However, the foetus couldn’t be saved.

Dr. Narvey responded with another video demonstrating how the fertilised egg became implanted in the liver. According to the Daily Mail, he explained how a normal pregnancy develops and how an ectopic pregnancy develops in the Fallopian tubes. “It’s possible, though, that if the egg and sperm join and then go the opposite way [in the fallopian tube], away from the ovary, they can implant in the peritoneum [tissue lining the belly],” he noted. The egg and sperm, on the other hand, “ended up travelling up to the liver where they implanted there” for the Canadian woman.