A medical team consisting of more than one hundred people in Singapore yesterday launched the first surgery is performed to separate two adult conjoined twins. These are the Iranians Ladan and Laleh Bijani, who have 29 years joined at the head and trunk. The marathon operation will last, according to experts, a minimum of 48 hours, but could be extended to four days. The twins share an artery that supplies blood to their brains, why they rejected German experts in 1996 to perform this operation.
The sisters, graduates in law from Tehran University, said they were willing to face death or any other consequence of this operation so as to have the opportunity to lead independent lives. “If God wants us to live the rest of our lives as two separate individuals, we will,” Ladan Bijani said. “We’ve never had much confidence as now, we are willing to assume all risks,” he said.
The girls arrived in Singapore last November with the hope that the medical team led by neurosurgeon Keith Goh of Singapore, the same professional in 2001 successfully separated two Nepalese babies, Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, joined at the head. That procedure was performed at the Singapore General Hospital and lasted 97 hours. A team of German doctors had refused in 1996 to carry out this type of operation, which they considered too risky because the patients share an artery that supplies blood to their brains.
August 14 surgeons and anesthetists