For 30 years, a married woman in India's Kolkata led a normal life until recently when doctors while treating her for abdominal pain, discovered she was actually a man suffering from testicular cancer.
The woman had recently visited a city-based cancer hospital with severe pain following which clinical oncologist Dr Anupam Dutta and surgical oncologist Soumen Das conducted medical tests, and found out her “true identity”.
“She is a woman by appearance. The voice, breasts, normal genitalia, etc. are all about the woman. However, her body has no uterus and ovaries since birth. She never had menstruation", Dr Dutta said.
According to the doctors, it’s a very rare condition, and can be found in one in every 22,000 people.
Following the reports of the woman suggesting that she has a "blind vagina", oncologists decided to conduct a karyotyping test. It revealed the patient's chromosome complement was "XY" and not "XX", as found in a woman.
"The clinical examinations, after she complained of abdominal pain, showed she had testicles inside her body. After which a biopsy was conducted, it was found that she had testicular cancer, also called seminoma", Das said.
The patient is undergoing chemotherapy and her condition is stable, Das added.
The doctors further stated that following the underdevelopment of her testicles inside the body, there was no secretion of testosterone and her female hormones, on the other hand, gave her the appearance of a woman.
While talking about the reaction of the patient to the revelation, the doctor said: “She has grown up like a woman and has lived married life for nearly a decade with a man. At this time, we are counseling the patient and her husband and trying to convince them that they will continue to live as they have been in the future".
She and her husband even tried for babies a number of times, but they couldn't succeed. The doctors said two other relatives of the patient have also had Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome in the past, so it seems to be a genetic problem.
