Russian Siamese Twins Separated

Both girls recover after ten hours of a very complicated operation

Russian doctors performed a totally unique operation at Filatov Children Hospital in Moscow. Doctors separated Siamese twins from the republic of Kyrgyzstan –sisters Zita and Gita Rezakhonovy (eleven years old). That was the first time ever, when doctors had to deal with the pathology of extreme complication.

The first successful attempt to separate Siamese twins was made by German doctor Koenig back in 1689. Twin sisters’ parents from Kyrgyzstan originally addressed to German doctors with a request to separate their daughters. Two eleven-year-old girls had one urinary bladder, two kidneys, one pelvis and three legs.

German specialists examined the girls and decided that they could perform such an operation, although the price would be 250 thousand euros. Needless to mention, that Zita and Gita’s parents did not have such money at their disposal. Moscow doctors from Filatov Children Hospital offered their help. They spent a month for detailed examinations, long discussions, which gathered dozens of orthopedists, urologists, anaesthetists, and so on.

The administration of the hospital has not made any official comments on the results of a very complicated operation. It is only known that the operation lasted more than ten hours. Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Yury Isakov, was the chief of the group of doctors. As we were told, anaesthetists had to face big problems during the operation: narcosis was fine for one girl, while it had no affect on the other one.

For the time being, one may say that the operation was successful, the two girls are alive. From now on, they will develop and grow separately from each other. World medical statistics shows that surgery performed on Siamese twins is considered to be successful even if one of the twins dies. There can be a lot of headlines like that found on the Internet: “Parents Choose Dying Sister,” “Siamese Twins Separated, One Dead, One Alive.” This reality is sad, but it is also objective.

The nature of this pathology has not been studied thoroughly yet. It is only known that Siamese twins develop from one fertilized ovule. That is why, such children are always of the same sex and of the same genome. This phenomenon was first mentioned in the year 954, in Armenia. In 1991 the phenomenon was called Siamese twins after two twin brothers, Enga and Changa, were born in Siam (currently Thailand).

One has to acknowledge that our narrow-minded attitude to those unhappy people can not be characterized as patient. However, Siamese twins are common people from the point of view of their psychological and intellectual state. Their biggest dream is to lead independent and individual life. Iranian twin sisters Ladan and Lali decided to be operated on after 28 years of living in one and the same body, so to speak.

Vladimir Popov, the head physician of the Filatov Children Hospital, said that the unique operation would not cost anything to Zita and Gita’s parents. It goes without saying that it implies a considerable damage to the hospital’s budget, against the background of the sum that German doctors calculated. The doctor added that the hospital would be very grateful to any sponsor donations. Life goes on.

BBC photo

Valery Volodchenko
Parlamentskaya Gazeta

PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov