NAGPUR – A teenage boy in the Indian state of Maharashtra has undergone surgery to have removed a 20cm “tail” growing at the bottom of his spine.
The 18-year-old boy, from Nagpur city, first noticed the “tail” just after his 14th birthday. The family kept it a secret because they were worried he would be bullied.
Before they went to see a doctor, it had grown too long to hide – the longest ever recorded on a human.
“It became a problem when the tail grew outside the body,” said his mother, who doesn’t want to be named.
Doctors say the teenager might have developed the tail in the womb as a result of a spinal deformity, the BBC reported.
“When the size of the tail grew… [it] began to press on the boy’s back,” said surgeon, Dr Pramod Giri. “It was cosmetically and psychologically disturbing for him.”
The doctors have now removed the tail which had begun to develop a bone inside.
The teenager will be kept in hospital for a few days and then allowed back home – without his tail.
