A team of Hungarian neurosurgeons successfully completed the second, most critical phase in the separation of Bangladeshi conjoined twins in a groundbreaking five-hour operation, neurosurgeon András Csókay told Magyar Idők.
The hospital in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka made a worldwide appeal for help but the Hungarian team was the only one that would undertake the surgery. In February they completed the first phase of the operation, separating the twins’ head arteries and in the latest, five-hour intervention they also managed to separate their veins.
Neurosurgeon András Csókay, head of the Hungarian team
Csókay said they introduced a catheter in the femoral vein through which the surgery on the head veins was performed.
“During the five-hour operation we employed this unique method for the first time in the world, successfully closed all common major veins which is a huge towards the final separation of the twins” Csókay said.
The procedure is far from over. The craniums and brains will also have to be separated, but the most critical phase – the separation of the two circulatory systems – is now complete.
The birth of conjoined twins is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence in Southeast Asia and Africa.
