A Romanian woman who thought she was pregnant was horrified when doctors told her she was really carrying an 11-pound tumor inside her uterus, the Daily Mail reported in a case that left doctors stumped.
"We don't often see a tumor of this size and in this location," Dr. Dorian Scladan, who recently performed the operation that removed the massive growth, told the newspaper.
The woman, 42-year-old Madalina Neagu, originally went to Botosani County Hospital thinking she was in labor due to pains in her abdomen. Doctors had no reason to question her and treated her like an expectant mother.
"As the woman told us she was pregnant, we initially expected pregnancy complications," Scladan said. "In fact the size of her belly was quite similar to that of a nine-month pregnant woman, so we didn't have any reason to doubt what she told us."
But upon further testing, doctors realized the bulge in her stomach was not a baby but a massive tumor, the Daily Mail reported.
Scladan and his colleagues operated on Neagu and successfully removed the growth. Doctors say she is going to be fine.
Neagu is not the first to believe she was pregnant only to find out the weight gain was caused by an abnormality. Last year, a 44-year-old Scottish woman saw her stomach swell despite months of dieting, the newspaper reported.
It was later determined she had a cyst on her ovary that was filled with fluids and needed a full hysterectomy.
