Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Boy gets `status,' thanks to surgery

By Our Staff Reporter

ELURU JULY 19. A team of doctors, headed by Kanumuri Ramesh, consultant urologist, of Venkataraya Institute of Medical Sciences here, has restored male status to a `boy,' mysteriously born with both male and female genital organs.

Dr. Ramesh told reporters here on Friday that the surgery had lasted for over three hours to effect manipulation which relieved K. Srinivasa Rao, father, of predicament about the fate of his son, Somaraju.

According to Dr. Ramesh, it was a case of `ambiguous genitalia' caused by chromosomal aberration called `true hermaphrodite' in medical parlance.

``Basically the embryo starts with both male and female organs and it carries both the traits until it transforms itself into a foetus in the eight week of conception,'' Dr. Ramesh explained. "From the eighth week onwards the foetus retains either of the genital organ.'' It is intriguing that such transformation did not take place in this case even four years after the birth of the child.

To quote Dr. Ramesh, such chromosomal aberration is seen among two-six lakh people. This aberration could be attributed to consanguineous marriages or genetic mutations. However, it was not a consanguineous marriage in the case of the child's parents.

The team manipulated genital organs and gave the child male status as per the wish of the parents. Saying that it was not uncommon in effecting surgical manipulations in favour of developing female sex, Dr. Ramesh, however, asserted that the case was a rare feat.

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