FACIAL DUPLICATION - CASE, REVIEW, AND EMBRYOGENESIS

The craniofacial anatomy of a [human] infant with facial duplication is described. There were 4 eyes, 2 noses, 2 maxillae and 1 mandible. Anterior to the single pituitary the brain was duplicated and there was bilateral arhinencephaly. Portions of the brain were extruded into a large frontal encephalocele. Cases of symmetrical facial duplication reported in the literature range from 2 complete faces on a single head (diprosopus) to simple nasal duplication. The variety of patterns of duplication suggested that the doubling of facial components arose in several different ways: forking of the notochord, duplication of the prosencephalon, duplication of the olfactory placodes, and duplication of maxillary and/or mandibular growth centers around the margins of the stomatodeal plate. Among reported cases, the female:male ratio is 2:1.