# Partial facial duplication (diprosopus): a  case report and review of the literature

## TL;DR

This paper reports a rare case of partial facial duplication in a newborn and discusses the condition's rarity and poor prognosis.

## Contribution

The paper presents a new case of diprosopus in an African neonate and reviews the literature on this rare condition.

## Key findings

- The neonate had partial facial duplication with two oral cavities and facial abnormalities.
- The patient also had corpus callosum agenesis and interhemispheric lipoma.
- The neonate passed away due to respiratory failure, highlighting the poor prognosis of this condition.

## Abstract

Diprosopus, or craniofacial duplication, is a rare entity that occurs in approximately 1 in 180,000 to 15 million live births. The degree of duplication varies from complete facial duplication to small facial structure duplication like the nose and eye. The cause of diprosopus is unknown though there are proposed factors.

Our African patient was a term 72 hours old female neonate who was referred to our center with impression of lower facial duplication with two oral cavity that are located side to side separated by large soft tissue, she also had flat nasal bridge with widely separated nostrils and widely spaced eyes. Besides the facial malformation she had multiple episodes of vomiting with aspiration. Her blood tests were normal. Precontract brain computed tomography (CT) scan confirmed partially duplicated mandible and maxilla, two oral cavity separated by large fatty tissue, brain tissue were well formed and the only abnormality was corpus callosum agenesis and interhemispheric lipoma. In her stay at hospital nasogastric tube (NG) tube feed was initiated and started with antibiotics for aspiration pneumonia. After 25th day the neonatal passed away with possible cause of death being respiratory failure.

Craniofacial duplication is a very rare anomaly with only a few cases reported. Most of these patients are stillborn, even if they survive the prognosis is often poor. Early prenatal diagnosis is very important as termination of pregnancy can sometimes be considered an option.