Siamese Twins Are Separated From One Another in Surgery That Was Unprecedented in Brazil

02/20/2018 - 11h04

Two twin girls born in Ceará in 2016, whose heads were attached, were separated from one another on Saturday (the 17th) following a surgery that was unprecedented in Brazil.

The operation, which was overseen by neurosurgeon Hélio Rubens Machado, of the Hospital das Clínicas at the USP Medical School in Ribeirão Preto, was the first of four that will take place in order to definitively separate Maria Ysabelle from Maria Ysadora, both of whom are 1 year and six months old.

Prior to the surgery, the girl's skulls and brains were three dimensionally recreated using acrylic molds that were made in the US. The models contained "every detail of their brains, each vein and artery, exactly as they were disposed," said Mr. Machado.

In addition to the first surgery, which took place on Saturday, three more have been scheduled to occur. In each surgery a part of the skull will be opened. Veins and other overlapping parts of their brains will be separated before closing their heads back up.

Each procedure takes on average four hours - the surgery on Saturday lasted six hours.

The second surgery will take place following a two to four month recovery period, and so on and so forth. If everything goes according to plan, the girls will only be definitively separated from on another a year from now, following the final and most complex surgical procedure.

Craniopagus twins, whose heads are fused at the cranium, are very rare: the ratio is 0.6 per every million births.

Surgeries like the one that was carried out are estimated at US$ 2.5 million in the American private health care network.

Translated by THOMAS MATHEWSON

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	Marlene Bergamo/Folhapress
	Two twin girls born in Ceará in 2016, whose heads were attached, were separated from one another following a surgery that was unprecedented in Brazil