WORLD OF CRISIS

Jun 9, 2010

Conjoined Nigerian twins separated, stable .VIDEO

After 11-Hour Operation, Nigerian Conjoined Twins Separated in India


Surgeons in India achieved a rare medical feat yesterday by successfully separating Nigerian eight-month-old conjoined twins in a private hospital in Bangalore after 11-hour long surgery, ending a prolonged wait and bringing a bundle of joy to the parents.
'Peace' and 'Patience' "are stable as of now and are in the ICU. We have to monitor their progress," Dr Ashley D'Cruz, General Pediatric Surgeon at Narayana Hrydayalaya hospital told Press Trust of India (PTI).

The twins born to Emmanuel and Comfort Adugbe weighed 10 kgs and shared common liver and intestine when they were taken to Narayana Hrydayalaya.The surgery, which began around 6.30 am local time concluded at 5.30 pm and involved a team of 24 personnel, including 14 doctors, D'Cruz said.

"It was a very complex surgery as both twins shared two-thirds of the intestine.“Even by 9 am, the preliminary procedure of identifying the fusion of the organs was still on. “Considering the challenge of the case and complexity involved, we had a complete dry run of the process two days ago. We had put in place everything, who will stand where, and how the entire separation process will take place. We had trained the entire medical team for Monday’s surgery. Every move was rehearsed,’’ D’Cruz told The Times of India as he was overseeing the historical surgery.

At the operation theatre ,there was equal measure of emotion. "The children are now being observed in the pediatric intensive care for close monitoring and care. This surgery could be a revolutionary path breaker for high end specialized surgical procedures in children," D'Cruz added. Why such unusual names? Their father says with patience he will earn peace of seeing the twins safely separated. And of course he did.

He and his wife arrived the venue of a press briefing after the surgery and were received with applause from the medical team and spectators.The team of 24 medical personnel comprising doctors, nurses and assistants began on one table with a set of surgeons and two sets of anesthetists.

After separating the twins, one was shifted to another table where reconstruction was performed by a second surgical team. According to Pediatrics Surgeon Dr Sanjay Rao, the sequence was rehearsed and researched several times as it is a major procedure. Even though they share one body, each baby received different kind of treatment. There was close coordination between the two sets of doctors as there were crucial challenges like maintaining body temperature of the babies and bleeding due to separation of major blood vessels.

Patience and Peace had livers fused, but had separate blood supply. The bile duct system was shared. They also shared a large part of the proximal bowel, and that was also reconstructed to ensure each child gets enough length of the bowel to ensure normal feeding.

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