A rare medical case: a young man endured months of pain before doctors discovered a one-in-a-million growth on his spleen and had to remove the organ.

• A 20-year-old with ongoing belly pain and high fever turned out to have a 5cm tumor on his spleen.
• The spleen has no pain nerves inside it, so problems there are easy to miss until they get bad.
• Tests ruled out parasites and identified the growth as an epidermoid cyst — basically the spleen growing something like a pimple.
• It forms when leftover embryo cells stay trapped in the spleen; the "skin flakes" they shed can't escape, so they build up, get infected, and cause pain and fever.
• Only one or two people worldwide are diagnosed with this each year; removing the spleen can weaken the immune system, but the family chose surgery after six months of repeated hospital stays.

Outlook: With the cyst removed the man should recover, though losing the spleen means he will need to be more careful about infections going forward.