How Mulago's Ugandan doctors separated seven-month old siamese twins
A tweet from Dr. Diana Atwine, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health on Tuesday announced a record breaking development, that a team of specialists at Mulago Specialized Hospital had successfully carried out a surgery, in which they separated Siamese twins.
"A team of specialists at Mulago Specialized Hospital successfully carried out a 20hr surgery to separate these Siamese twins. Thanks to the team.We continue to strive towards excellence in specialized health care. đź‘Ź "Dr. Atwine announced.
In a press conference held on Tuesday afternoon, Dr. John Sekabiira, who led the team of specialists told journalists that the operation took them 20 hrs to be able to successfully separate the twins.
According to Dr. Sekabiira, it took efforts from a team of specialists from different departments.
"We had specialists from the paediatric, plastic surgery, neurology and and others," Dr. Sekabiira said.
Dr. Sekabiira added that the team first carried out tests and studies to find out which body organs were shared by the conjoined twins, before the surgery could take place.
From the tests according to Dr. Sekabiira, the twins were sharing a rectum.
"We saw that the rectum was fused at the end but it was separate at the end, so we have out tissue expanders which will later be removed," Dr. Sekabiira added.
Dr. Sekabiira said the tissue expanders will help to expand the skin that will have to make cover up for the defect when the operation is finally dine.
The team leader said that they will now have to wait for the inflammatory phase of the surgery to heal before they can perform the last surgery.
According to Mayo Clinic website, siamese twins are two babies born physically connected to each other.The siamese or conjoined twins develop when an early embryo partially separates to form two individuals.
Most conjoined twins, according to Mayo Clinic website are stillborn or die shortly after birth and Dr. Sekabiira said that their chance of survival always depends on the organs they share.
