An Unusual Case of 'Human Tail', Removed by Doctors at AIIMS

A 15 centimeter ‘human tail’ was removed by doctors from a three-month-old boy in AIIMS Bibinagar. “Human tails are very rare, with approximately 40 cases reported worldwide in medical literature”, said Dr. Shasanka Shekhar Panda, Head of the Pediatric Surgery department at the hospital.

 A very rare case of a human tail was found in an infant.  The male infant was operated upon by a team of pediatric surgeons in January and the 15-cm tail was removed successfully. The infant was reviewed at the hospital and found to be improving well.

Frequently, what looks to be a true tail is actually a pseudo tail, which is typically a symptom of an irregular coccyx (base of spinal column) or spina bifida (condition when spine and spinal cord don’t form properly)l. “In this case, the tail was attached to the infant’s spinal cord”, Dr. Panda clarified.

. “The surgery to remove the tail took about three hours, during which we meticulously dissected the tail. The post-operative recovery has been uneventful, and the patient has no neurological deficit”, Dr. Panda said

The patient was taken to the hospital and admitted for five days during which the surgery was done. After six months of consistent follow-up, there have been no worries.