Image for representation.
Credit: iStock Photo
In a rather bemusing discovery, a man with three penises has been found by researchers in UK, as per Interesting Engineering, making it only the second known instance of this extremely rare congenital defect - also known as triphallia.
Doctors came across the first recorded case of triphallia in Duhok, Iraq in 2020, when they found a 3-month-old kid born with three penises.
This, however, marks the first reported case of this peculiar medical condition in an adult. The discovery was made by student researchers at the University of Birmingham Medical School in the UK while examining the cadaver of a 78-year-old man, whose body was donated to the institute. It is probable that the man lived his entire life without knowing about his condition.
Diphallia, or the condition of having two penises, although a more common occurrence in comparison to triphallia, is so rare that it affects only one in five to six million people in the world. Only about a 100 cases of diphallia have been reported till date.
According to a study published in the Journal of Medical Case Reports, there has been only one recorded case of triphallia, which can be defined as a rare congenital condition characterised by the presence of three separate penile shafts.
Issues including erectile dysfunction, urinary tract infections, and fertility problems are byproducts of triphallia.
Details relating to this condition can be studied for the first time after careful dissection of the donated body.
The man, about six feet tall, had a normal external male genitalia, the researchers noted during the examination.
But after further research, it was discovered that there were "two small extra penises concealed within the scrotal sac."
The researchers noted that both the main and secondary penises of the person had a common urethra.
“We cannot be sure if the defect was unnoticed in this case, as the person had a history of having surgery to repair an inguinal hernia,” the scientists said.