Cyclopia, A Rare and Lethal Congenital Anomaly: Report of Two Cases, 2025

Cyclopia is an extremely rare and fatal congenital anomaly in which causes are not commonly known. This condition is marked by the failure of the eye orbits to properly divide, resulting in a single eye field or closely positioned eye fields. There is no specific treatment, and the prognosis is generally poor with most babies dying shortly after birth or during infancy.

These two newborns were born to multiparous mothers, which died soon after birth. Diagnosis was made postpartum with centrally located single eye and long proboscis on the midline of the forehead, with the second had associated with cystic hygroma. Both cases had no other gross visible congenital anomalies on the extremities, abdomen, and head. But other anomalies as renal, central nervous system, cardiac and chromosomal anomalies cannot be excluded.

Both cases had died immediately, and health professionals should experience with detailed antenatal ultrasound scanning to detect these congenital anomalies antepartum for better counseling of patients. Routine antenatal ultrasound assessment is crucial in low resource countries where ultrasound scanning is commonly done in higher health facilities.