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Two good to be true – conjoined twins separated after 27-hour op
Frank Thorne, in Australia17 Nov 2009
Surgeons in Australia have successfully separated conjoined twins Krishna and Trishna in a marathon operation.
After more than 27 hours of separation surgery, plastic surgeons at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital were working on the Bangladeshi girls, aged two years and 11 months.
The hospital's head of surgery, Leo Donnan, praised his doctors, saying: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime operation that teams would do.
“There's relief and it's nice to know we're on to the next stage rather than the previous stage we were at.”
Mr Donnan said the twins, who were joined at the head, still have a difficult time ahead of them.
“Everything we have done has gone successfully,” he said. “It was a surreal moment when the pair was separated. And relief. But everyone realised there was a long way to go.
“The girls' physiological condition has improved over the operations, but their bodies now have to recover. Everything is in place for the best possible outcome.”
The twins were taken to Australia because of the poor survival rates in Bangladesh where only two children have survived four operations in recent years.
The milestone procedure comes after British doctors tried to separate Faith and Hope Williams last December.
The sisters were joined from the breastbone to the top of the navel and had separate hearts.
However, Hope died during the operation and Faith died three weeks later on Christmas Day.
With plastic surgeons now completing the work on Krishna and Trishna, Mr Donnan declined to say when the operation would be declared finished.
“I'm not going to put any time-frame on it,” he said. “However long it takes is how long it takes.
“The mood in the theatre certainly changes now you are dealing with two children rather than one.
“Now we have the long task of the reconstruction surgery which will go on for many hours,” he said.
Mr Donnan said Moira Kelly, of the Children's First Foundation, who brought the twins to Australia for the operation, was relieved.
“Moira's reaction was a mixture of relief and joy, and all the emotions flooding out,” he said.
The operation was initially expected to take 16 hours and the Bangladeshi orphans were given a 25 per cent chance of making it through without harm. The hospital's experts considered some level of brain damage a 50 per cent chance and death was also a possibility.
Reader views (1)
Brilliant story about a brilliant operation. Congratulations to all concerned.
- Graham Rodhouse, Helmond, Netherlands, 17/11/2009 11:59
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