New Delhi: Conjoined twins from Kandhamal district Jaga and Kalia Friday returned to Odisha two years after successful cranial separation surgery at Neurosciences Centre of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here.
The four-year old twins were admitted at department of neurosurgery, AIIMS in July 2017 and separated by a team of 125 doctors and support staff led by Dr Deepak Gupta, Prof. of Neurosurgery. Doctors termed the case highly complex as the twins shared venous return and were totally fused each other at head level.
Addressing a press conference, Dr Deepak Gupta gave details regarding the various surgeries conducted to separate the twins successfully. He said that such separation surgeries are now possible in India but only in big institutes like AIIMS.
“We made 3D print models of their head and also did some surgery of these models before going for operation. After a detailed planning for surgical separation, the first stage surgery was conducted August 2017 which lasted for 25 hours. We created venous bypass on Kalia and partial brain separation from Jaga so that the kids do not die as in number of cases conjoined twins died during separation surgery. The final separation of two kids was successfully done October 25, 2017 which was lasted for 24 hours. Skin grafting and minor neurosurgical procedures were done to cover skin defects by plastic surgery team over next few months,” said Dr Deepak Gupta.
He further said that the Neuro-anesthesia team was present throughout the journey, which involved a total of nine anesthetic procedures, starting from radiological investigations, the two-staged separation followed by a number of plastic surgeries.