A baby boy in Turkey has defied one in 30 million odds after being born without a penis.
The newborn, who hasn’t been named, has a medical condition known as penile agenesis.
It’s extraordinarily rare, with only 80 cases ever having been recorded in scientific literature.
The young boy’s bizarre birth was chronicled by medics – led by Müslim Yurtçu – in medical journal Urology Case Reports.
Despite having no penis, the baby’s scrotum was still ‘well-formed’, with his testicles having descended – the journal outlines he did not have any other visible body deformities.
In response, penile reconstruction is a ‘good alternative’ for the infant, according to doctors at Erbakan University in Konya, which is 160 miles south of the capital Ankara.
One day after being born, the baby was taken away to paediatric surgeons to investigate his condition, where they found he had a vesicorectal fistula – an abnormal connection between his bladder and rectum.
This unfortunate condition can cause faecal matter leaking into a person’s urine – it was not revealed whether the infant was suffering such symptoms.
Doctors also found after a medical scan he had a condition that caused a build-up of urine – the build-up was then spotted during surgery to remove the fistula.
The journal read:
Although many uncommon types have been reported, penile agenesis associated with vesicoureteral reflux has not been reported in an infant with vesicorectal fistula.
This is the first report of an infant with the combination of penile agenesis, vesicoureteral reflux, and vesicorectal fistula. A three-year-old infant with penile agenesis proven to have bilateral vesicoureteral reflux and vesicorectal fistula is reported.
The doctor added in the report: ‘The incidence of penile agenesis has been estimated to be one in 10-30 million live births.’
While female gender assignment is ordinarily recommended for the anomaly, the infant’s family have opted against the procedure.
Dr Richard Viney, an urologist based at the Bladder Clinic in Birmingham, called it a ‘fascinating and complex case’.
As per the MailOnline, Dr Viney said:
It’s tempting to think of the lack of penis as a failure of genital development and therefore some kind of intersex issue but this is very unlikely to be the case.
The failure here is of the development of the lower urinary tract and bowel. In the foetus they share a common cavity called the cloaca. As the foetus developed the cloaca splits into the bladder and rectum. The rectovesical fistula is simply where the cloaca has failed to split into bladder and rectum fully.
This can be corrected surgically. The child is male and any surgery to correct the abnormalities should also include creating a meaningful penis.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.