Conjoined brothers get new lives

NATURE'S KNOT: The ten-month-old twins, Ram and Laxman shared common liver and pancreas.

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Keywords: Raipur, Surgery

New Delhi: Doctors conducted a rare surgical operation to separate ten-month-old conjoined twins Ram, Laxman on Tuesday at a hospital in Raipur.

The infants were joined at the stomach and shared one liver. They had Hernia since birth, which made the surgery even more complicated. The infants had less than 30 percent chance of survival. Post-natal surgeon Dr Amit Verma said, ”The doctors have done a spectacular job. I feel it was a critical surgery because the twins were joined with the liver. Similar complications are faced when the babies are attached by the head (skull) or the heart.”

The survival rate of the conjoined twins is usually dismal. One in 200,000 live births can end up being conjoined twins and the survival rates vary anywhere between five to 25 per cent, said Dr Verma. This remarkable surgery is the fourth of its kind in the last three years in India.

“The good part about liver is that you need ‘x’ amount of it to survive and the lever tends to regrow. The organ tends to grow very fast which helps a lot in such cases. The lever is split and it is going to re-grow as they go along,” he said.

A team of doctors, including five senior physicians and three anaesthetists, led by Head of the Department of Surgery, Prof Ashok Sharma, operated upon the Saimese twins.

"It was a challenge before us to separate the ten-month-old conjoined twins Ram and Lakshman. We accepted it to remove the rare anomaly," Deputy Superintendent of the Raipur Medical College Hospital, Dr M P Pujhari told PTI.

Both the babies shared common liver and pancreas along with some other portions of the body, but fortunately their heart and urinary organs were separate.

"Since the bodies of the twin were joined, the doctors faced problems in administering anaesthesia keeping in mind that some of their organs function in a combined manner," Pujhari added.

The teary mother sought blessings for her little ones before they were to undergo the operation. "I want everybody to bless my children for a successful operation," Prabhawati, the mother of the twins said.

The parents of Ram and Lakshman are not financially well-off. Therefore the hospital authorities agreed to bear the expenses for the entire treatment of the twins. Recalling the delivery of the conjoined brothers, Pujhari said, "It was a normal delivery at home. But when the parents came to know about their conjoined state, they approached this hospital. But then, the twins were quite underweight to go through an operated and hence the idea was deferred.”