Conjoined Twins' Separation a Success

After undergoing surgery which lasted over 30 hours at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital in Australia, two-year-old conjoined twins, Krishna and Trishna have been successfully separated. The Bangladeshi girls were taken from an orphanage in Dhaka and brought to Australia by ambassadors for the Children First Foundation- fundraising was put in place when their plight was recognised. The twins were previously joined at the back of the head, sharing brain tissue and blood vessels.

The operation began at 10am on Monday morning; a team of sixteen specialists worked on the separation- which was longer than expected at 27 hours- and the subsequent restructuring of the twins’ skulls which took an additional 5 hours. But the twins are “in great shape,” according to Leo Donnan, chief surgeon at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Donnan went on to say, “Their bodies have to recover from this, and we've got a lot of unknown territory we're moving into.”

The twins left the surgery in an induced coma and will remain so until it is considered safe to wake them slowly. There is an estimated 50 percent chance that the girls will recover without any brain damage resulting from the surgery, but this can only be determined when they are woken.

Director of anesthesia, Ian McKenzie noted as the surgery was in progress that the increased degree of separation helped to treat the twins individually, as “previously there was always the worry that if you treat one it could go in the wrong direction for the other.’’ Krishna had previously been experiencing problems with her kidneys and was relying on Trishna’s to function for the two of them, but Krishna’s own kidneys are now functioning independently.

As said by Donnan: "For the hospital, it is an historic moment, and for the girls, an even more historic moment." Given the successful surgery, hopes are high for a full recovery.

Sources:
Radio Netherlands Worlwide: Siamese Twins Separated in Australia
The Independent: Conjoined Twins Separated Successfully
The Age: Conjoined Twins Trishna, Krishna Separated in Mammoth Operation
Seven News: Twins Now Leading Separate Lives