HCM City's doctors separate conjoined twins

Doctors have successfully separated conjoined twins at the City Children’s Hospital in HCM City.( Photo courtesy of the City Children’s Hospital)

HCM City - Around 100 doctors and nurses at the City Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital 1 and 2, Cho Ray Hospital and others in HCM City on July 15 took part in a successful operation to separate conjoined twins.

The twins are 13 months old and weigh 15 kilogrammes, and are in good health. Because their development indexes are the same as healthy children, doctors said the surgery was now safe to perform.

Doctors said they would perform additional operations on the children, including plastic surgery.

Professor Tran Dong A, 79, is one of nine key doctors performing the operation. He said the chances of the children making a full recovery was very positive thanks to advanced surgical techniques and equipment.

Doctors have prepared scenarios and predicted risks since June 2019 when the twins were born, he said.

Professor A successfully performed an operation to separate Vietnamese twin boys in 1988.

When the twins were delivered in June last year, the city’s Children’s Hospital said they were joined at the pelvis and all four lower extremities were present and oriented at right angles to the axis of the common trunk. The twins, who weighed 3.2kg at the time, were then brought to the city’s Children’s Hospital.

Last year, when the woman's pregnancy reached 16 weeks, doctors detected that the twins shared one umbilical cord. At 33 weeks, doctors decided to operate and deliver the twins.

The rate of conjoined twins worldwide is 1 per 200,000 live births. Among the rate, only 6 percent are classified as ischiopagus tetrapus conjoined twins, which means they were joined at the pelvis.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Acting Minister of Heath Nguyen Thanh Long on July 15 evening sent a special congratulation message to the team of doctors who carried out the surgery and at the same time passed on their best wishes to the two baby sisters.