Girl Born With Too Many Fingers Has Extra Digits Surgically Removed
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A girl who was born with extra fingers on each of her hands has undergone surgery to correct the birth defect.
The three-year-old Chinese girl, who is unidentified, was born with several extra thumb-like digits on her hands. That's 14 fingers in total, according to the doctor who operated on her.
According to local reports, she is part of the fifth generation of her family to have extra digits.
Although it's a recurring condition, it is thought that her family have always been too poor to have treatment.
Now, however, this young girl has had life-altering surgery to remove the extra digits.
The youngster was treated at the Central Hospital of Shenyang Medical College, which is situated in China's north eastern Liaoning province.
Following the procedure, doctors expect the girl to have normal development, as well as having no effect on the function or appearance of her hands.
The hand surgery specialist who performed the operation is called Dr Zhan Jie. After the procedure was performed, he said: "The girl had two extra fingers on each hand - quite a rare patient.
"The surgery was complicated by the fact that the fingers we wanted to keep and those we wanted to remove weren't clear and obvious."
On top of removing the extra fingers, they also inserted metal rods in order to straighten the fingers and redirect the bone growth in the remaining thumbs.
Dr Zhan continued: "Besides removing the extra digits, we also needed to make corrections to the angle."
"It's been a month since the operation. She came back after two weeks to have her sutures removed.
"Both we and the patient's family are satisfied with the appearance of her hands."
Well, everything seems to have gone pretty well so far, although the medics didn't say whether further surgery might be necessary.
Following the surgery the doctors have not only managed to correct the child's fingers, but also to remove any potential stigma related to her condition that could have affected her throughout her childhood.
Having extra digits, known professionally as polydactylism, affects one in every 500 new born babies around the world.
Patients in the developed world are often more likely to have them removed in infancy. However, in developing nations that is less common.
Luckily, in this case, the young girl managed to get the surgery she needed.
Featured Image Credit: Asiawire
Topics: World News, Interesting, Weird
