BUDAPEST, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- A team of Hungarian doctors has successfully separated a pair of Bangladeshi twins conjoined at the head, in a 30-hour operation that ended on Friday in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The three-year-old twins are well and their condition is "stable" after the marathon surgery, but complications cannot be ruled out just yet, the Foundation for Defenceless People, which organized the surgical intervention, told Hungarian news agency MTI here on Friday.
The twins were 2.5 years old when they arrived in Hungary on Jan. 5, 2019 with their family for a series of plastic surgeries. Following the acclimatization and some examinations to prepare for the final separation, a special Hungarian-designed expander implant system was inserted to expand the scalp and soft tissue.
The plastic surgery phase has been the second in the series of interventions that the twins had to undergo in order to be separated: it consisted of the implantation of special expanders to gain skin and soft tissues to cover the large wound after the final separation. The interventions totaled some 40 minor interventions, 1-2 interventions per week (filling of expander implants and change of bandages).
The first intervention was a two-step separation of the large veins of the brains by an innovative endovascular method that means approaching the area from the inside, from the deep femoral vein, led by the Hungarian Dr. Istvan Hudak, they were performed on Feb. 28, and Aug. 19, 2018, in Dhaka.
The third phase took place in Bangladesh, led by Dr. Andras Csokay, famous Hungarian neurosurgeon. It was the final separation of the brain and skulls, and the replacement and covering of the underdeveloped parts with the tissues obtained through the tissue expansion process.
The mission team of Action for Defenceless People Foundation consists of 35 devoted people: 19 doctors and 16 scrub nurses, assistants and documentation staff.
Although the twins are through their most serious intervention, they will have to go through a secondary plastic-reconstructive optimization interventions, for example for the sake of the further reconstruction of the skull if necessary: these are to take place in late 2019 and/or 2020. Skull rebuilding may be delayed as long as 4-5 months after the final separation, according to the foundation.
