Jakarta surgeons separate conjoined twins

Jakarta surgeons separate conjoined twins

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

After a five-hour operation, a team of doctors from Jakarta's
Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital managed to separate conjoined
twins Nia and Mia on Saturday.

Commenting after the surgery, the medical team spokesman,
Soedjatmiko, said the babies were now in stable condition.

He said the team found difficulties in separating the twins as
they were facing each other.

Mia and Nia are daughters of 22-year old Nurlela and 28-year
old construction worker Mulyadi. They were born on March 22.

The surgeons, supervised by Imam Susanto, had to separate the
twins' conjoined livers, heart membranes and rib cages.

"The most difficult stage was separation of their livers as
the organs contain a lot of capillaries," Imam said as quoted
Kompas Cyber Media. The team, he added, would have to use a
special scalpel to avoid major bleeding.

Another 90 minutes of operation was needed to stitch them up.

Doctors said the twins would have to undergo another operation
to repair imperfection in their heart membranes, following the
separation surgery which cost around Rp 500 million (US$52,600).

Overall, the twins will have to go through four more stages of
post-separation care, including a heart reconstruction operation,
post-heart operation and rehabilitation.

The successful operation adds to the list of separated
Indonesian conjoined twins after the separation of Angie and
Angeli in Singapore. The babies were conjoined at the hip and
only has one leg each and shared a third one.

Previously, on Jan 31, a team of doctors at Dr. Soetomo
General Hospital in Surabaya operated on Balinese conjoined twins
Dwipayanti and Dwipayani.

After a nine-hour surgery, the team of doctors declared the
babies were fine. But, five days after the operation, Dwipayani
died of heart and lung failure, while her sister is still on life
support.

Doctors at the Soetomo hospital have successfully separated
nine of 18 pairs of conjoined twins, including Dwipayanti and
Dwipayani.

Separating conjoined twins is among the most complicated of
all surgical procedures due to its high risk and the necessity to
involve doctors from various fields of specialty, depending on
where the children are conjoined.