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Docs say next few days critical to Aguirre twins' survival
NEW YORK - Two-year-old Filipino twins who were born joined at the head have been surgically separated, but the next few days are critical to their survival, doctors said on Thursday (Friday in Manila).
Over four separate operations that began last October, twins Carl and Clarence Aguirre first had their blood vessels separated. The intricate process culminated with their physical separation on Wednesday in a 16-hour operation.
Twelve hours after leaving the operating room, the boys rest under sedation in the pediatric intensive care unit.
They will continue to be monitored by teams of pediatric specialists during the first critical hours and days following the surgery.
Surgery to separate conjoined twins often takes place in a single marathon procedure. The Aguirre twins were separated using a new technique aimed at reducing complications.
James Goodrich, Montefiore Medical Center's director of children's neurosurgery and the lead surgeon, said the procedure was complicated since the twins shared large blood vessels that fused their brains.
He said the next two days, doctors will watch for the prospect of infection and other complications and that it will take up to two weeks to assess possible brain damage.
"This is an enormously complex case," Goodrich said, adding that during the surgery doctors were reassessing strategy "every 15 minutes."
Conjoined twins occur once in every 200,000 live births. One or both twins often die after separation, and the rate of survival beyond the age of 2 is only 20 percent.
But the doctors involved in the Aguirre twins' procedure said theirs was particularly risky because of the shared skull bone and blood vessels -- a condition known as craniopagus that only occurs in about one in 10 million live births.
The twins will need as many as three more operations to reconstitute their skulls.