In an operation that lasted for three hours, a team of doctors separated a pair of conjoined twins at Rajah Mirasudhar Government Hospital, attached to Thanjavur Medical College here on Monday.
“After separation, the larger twin was kicking and alive and is normal” said T.V. Sathappan, Head of the Department of Paediatric Surgery, Thanjavur Medical College. Dr. Sathappan said that there several types of conjoined twins and this case was one of Parasitic twins. These are twins that are conjoined resulting in one of them being smaller and less formed and thus dependent on the larger twin
According to Dr. Sathappan, the conjoined twins were delivered through a Caesarean section at a private Hospital at Kumbakonam.
“This is one of the rarest of rare anomalies that occur once in ten lakh births,” Dr. Sathappan said.
Paediatrics Surgery department functioning at Rajah Mirasudhar Government hospital is fully equipped to conduct surgeries on rare babies like this. After studying the condition of the baby, G. Ambujam, Medical Superintendent of Thanjavur Medical College, decided to separate the conjoined twins.
Accordingly, a team of doctors led by Dr. Sathappan and comprising of doctors Ravi, Sivan and Jayachandran conducted the surgery.
