Conjoined Korean Twins Set for Singapore Surgery

Conjoined Korean Twins Set for Singapore Surgery











SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Two weeks after a failed attempt to separate Iranian twins, four-month-old conjoined South Korean sisters will undergo surgery to separate them at the same Singapore hospital, state television said on Monday.

The operation to separate the babies joined at the lower spine could start as early as Tuesday if tests go well, Channel News Asia reported.


A team of 10 surgeons had been assembled for the surgery which was expected to last around 10 hours, it said.


Raffles Hospital spokeswoman Liang Hwee Ting told Reuters earlier on Monday that results of tests carried out on the babies over the weekend were still pending.


The parents of the Korean twins had sought the advice of experts at Raffles Hospital before it began a high-profile operation to separate Laleh and Ladan Bijani, Iranian twins joined at the head, which ended tragically on July 8.


The 29-year-old law graduates lost a lot of blood as the 52-hour operation to separate them was coming to an end.


Their deaths sparked a heated debate on the ethics of such a life-threatening operation, with some medical experts concerned about what they saw as the haste and motive behind the surgery.


But the parents of the Korean twins are determined to go ahead with the surgery, the station said.


Min Seung-joon, father of the twins, said the Singaporean medical team had given the twins a better than 85 percent chance of survival.


The twins, their parents and grandparents, had traveled to Singapore in mid-June for tests.


The parents had sought the help of Dr Keith Goh after hearing of his success in disentangling the fused skulls and brains of 11-month-old Nepali sisters in 2001.


"The situation with the Korean twins is definitely less complicated," a medical source involved in the Bijani twins' separation surgery told Reuters.




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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&nci...h_singapore_twins_dc

India's abandoned newborn conjoined twins to be adopted by NGO



A pair of newly born conjoined twins abandoned in a New Delhi hospital by their parents will be cared for by a non-governmental organisation, the Indian media reported.






The baby boys, nicknamed variously by medics caring for them as "Left" and "Right", and "Nilu" (blue) and "Pinku" (pink), will be taken in by the Pringle Anganvada NGO, which runs an orphanage in the northern city of Amritsar, reports said.


The 36-day-old twins are being looked after by staff at New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).


The two have separate #########, chests, hearts, stomachs, lungs and spinal cords but their liver, bladder, intestines and genitalia are fused. They also have just two legs between them.


"They are symmetrically fused and both babies are equally healthy," said D.K. Gupta, additional professor of paediatric surgery at AIIMS.


Separation surgery was not advisable as "each leg has a separate set of nerves linked to the two independent nervous systems" -- meaning they would have only one leg each on separation, Gupta said.


It would also involve complicated liver and intestine surgery and both would have curved spines.


"The surgery would cause extreme deformity," the doctor said.


He said AIMS had been inundated with calls since news of the plight of the twins was published in the weekend media.


"I think our biggest achievement has been that the children have found a home," Gupta said.


Arbinder Singal, another doctor, said the twins' mother saw them only once, "...but she does not want them."



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/india_twins

نجحت عملية فصل التوأمتين الكوريتين



نجح الأطباء في مستشفى بسنغافورة في فصل رضيعتين توأم من كوريا الجنوبية، تبلغان أربعة أشهر من العمر، بعد أن كانتا ملتصقتين عند العمود الفقري.

وقد جرت العملية في نفس المستشفى الذي شهد منذ أسبوعين فشل عملية فصل التوأم الايراني.

وقال دكتور برم كومار، المتحدث باسم المستشفى، إن التوأم سا رانج وجي هاي يخضعان لعملية تجميلية لاعادة تشكيل بعض أجزاء جسديهما.

ويعتقد أن فرص نجاح فصل التوائم الملتصقة تكون أفضل وهم في سن صغيرة.

ونقت صحيفة كوريا تايمز عن والد التوأم، مين سيونج-جون، قوله إن الجراحين أخبروه أن فرص نجاح العملية تبلغ 85%.

وكانت فرص نجاح عملية التوأم الايراني 50% فقط.





حالات تنجح وأخرى لا

ولد التوأم في الثالث من مارس/آذار الماضي وهما ملتصقتان في الجزء الأسفل من العمود الفقري.

وهذا هو التؤأم الثالث الذي يخضع لعملية فصل في نفس المستشفى خلال عامين.

وكان الجراحون قد نجحوا في فصل توأم نيبالي يبلغان من العمر 18 شهرا كانتا ملتصقتين عند الرأس في نوفمبر/تشرين ثاني 2001.

وفي الثامن من شهر يوليو/ تموز الجاري حاول فريق ضخم من الأطباء فصل التوأم الايراني لاله ولادان بيجاني، واللتين كانتا تبلغان التاسعة والعشرين.

غير أن التوأم، الذي كان ملتصقا عند الرأس، توفيا في غرفة العمليات بعد وقت قليل من فصلهما.

وأثارت وفاة التوأم الايراني جدلا حول مدى صحة مثل تلك العمليات أخلاقيا، وأعرب بعض الخبراء عن قلقهم من الدوافع وراء مثل تلك الجراحات الخطرة.

وقال والد التوأم الكوري مين سيونج-جون إن التوأم الايراني التقيا بابنتيه قبل إجراء الجراحة وشجعاه.


لاله ولادان لم يحالفهما الحظوأضاف الأب لصحيفة كوريا تايمز أنه بكى عندما علم بوفاة التوأم الايراني.

وعلى عكس جراحة التوأم الإيراني، حرص طاقم المستشفى على إبقاء التفاصيل الدقيقة للجراحة طي الكتمان ما أمكن.

ويعتقد أن طاقما طبيا يتألف ما بين 10 إلى 12 طبيبا، من بينهم جراح الأعصاب كيث جوه الذي قاد عملية التوأم الايراني، شارك في إجراء العملية.

وتقول وسائل الاعلام المحلية إنه من المتوقع أن تبلغ تكلفة فصل التوأم ما يزيد عن 28 ألف دولار، وإن الأب اضطر لبيع مقهى الانترنت الذي يملكه لتوفير المبلغ

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/sci_tech/newsid_3087000/3087865.stm

Four-Month-Old Korean Conjoined Twins Separated in Successful Surgery






Baby girls Ji Hye (Wisdom) and Sa Rang (Love), born with their pelvis fused together, can now look forward to life as independent individuals, thanks to a successful surgery to separate them.

In what was the first case of ischiopagus separation in Singapore, the four- month old babies were separated by a multidisciplinary team of specialists at Raffles Hospital after a 4½ hour operation.

Leading the team was Dr Yang Ching Yu, Deputy Medical Director of Raffles Hospital, and Dr Keith Goh, consultant neurosurgeon, Raffles Hospital.

The team comprised specialists in the field of neurosurgery, paediatric surgery, plastic surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, urology, orthopaedic surgery, paediatrics and anaesthesia, and 50 other medical support staff.

Separation surgery was essential if the girls wanted a chance to develop as normal children.

The girls could not feed properly as the way they were joined forced them to lie on one side. The position also caused their ######### to be flattened.

Said Dr Yang: "The girls have to be separated at this stage because if we wait any longer, they may develop severe skull and spinal deformities. Without separation, they will never walk properly."

Following the separation, the girls will undergo rehabilitation to ensure that they develop like normal children.


http://www.raffleshospital.com/koreantwins/koreantwins.asp