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.