China hospital separates conjoined twins
A Chinese hospital said Tuesday it had successfully separated four-month-old conjoined twin girls in a "challenging" six-hour operation.
The twin girls, nicknamed An An and Xin Xin, were born in April with their liver and pericardium -- the sac that contains the heart -- connected, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
"The two babies are now in a stable condition and are being closely watched in the intensive care unit," a spokeswoman for the Shanghai Children's Medical Centre, who declined to give her name, told AFP.
The centre's director, Liu Jinfen, told Xinhua that four groups of doctors worked to separate the girls in the surgery, which began on Monday morning.
"We separated their hearts and livers, reshaped their breastbones and remodelled their breasts with titanium-alloy plates," Liu said after the operation.
The twins entered the medical centre shortly after their birth in April, as doctors wanted them to gain weight before any operation.
The two weighed a combined 4.9 kilograms (10.8 pounds) at birth, and 10kg just before the operation.
"The operation is challenging, but we made it," Liu said, adding that the girls might be reliant on a machine to help them breathe for some time to come.
The twins will stay in the intensive care unit for at least a month.
Their mother, whose name was not given, discovered the condition of her babies during a pre-natal check, but decided to keep the twins after doctors told her about the procedure.
Shanghai is recognised as having among the best healthcare in China and the spokeswoman said it was the hospital's third successful procedure to separate conjoined twins.
Up to 1.2 million newborns are affected by birth defects in China every year, the Shanghai Daily said.
China, with the world's largest population at more than 1.3 billion, had over 16 million births in 2009, the latest figure available.
(c) 2011 AFP
-
Conjoined twins delivered
Oct 26, 2006 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Impossible to separate Gaza-born conjoined twins: doctors
Apr 10, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Docs say formerly conjoined twins recovering well
Nov 25, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Conjoined Utah twins to be separated
Aug 05, 2006 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Separated twins now breathing on their own
Aug 14, 2006 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Classical and Quantum Mechanics via Lie algebras
Apr 15, 2011
- More from Physics Forums - Independent Research
More news stories
ACP issues recommendations for management of high blood glucose in hospitalized patients
High blood glucose is associated with poor outcomes in hospitalized patients, and use of intensive insulin therapy (IIT) to control hyperglycemia is a common practice in hospitals. But the recent evidence does not show a ...
Other
18 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Future doctors unaware of their obesity bias
Two out of five medical students have an unconscious bias against obese people, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. The study is published online ahead of print in the Journal of ...
Other
May 23, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Plastic realistic: Medical students to use plastinated human bodies for anatomy learning
Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) new medical school will be pioneering the use of plastinated bodies for medical education in Singapore.
Other
May 23, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Survey points out deficiencies in addictions training for medical residents
A 2012 survey of internal medicine residents at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) – one of the nation's leading teaching hospitals – found that more than half rated the training they had received in addiction and other ...
Other
May 22, 2013 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
Early use of tracheostomy for mechanically ventilated patients not associated with improved survival
For critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation, early tracheostomy (within the first 4 days after admission) was not associated with an improvement in the risk of death within 30 days compared to patients who ...
Other
May 21, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Engineered cytomegalovirus protects monkeys from HIV equivalent
(Medical Xpress)—A new study by researchers in the US has shown that an ancient virus can be modified to help in the fight against the simian immunodeficiency virus SIV, which is the equivalent in monkeys ...
Hormone levels may provide key to understanding psychological disorders in women
Women at a particular stage in their monthly menstrual cycle may be more vulnerable to some of the psychological side-effects associated with stressful experiences, according to a study from UCL.
Going live: Immune cell activation in multiple sclerosis
Biological processes are generally based on events at the molecular and cellular level. To understand what happens in the course of infections, diseases or normal bodily functions, scientists would need to ...
Researchers identify first drug targets in childhood genetic tumor disorder
Two mutations central to the development of infantile myofibromatosis (IM)—a disorder characterized by multiple tumors involving the skin, bone, and soft tissue—may provide new therapeutic targets, according to researchers ...
Depression raises diabetics' risk of severe low blood sugar episodes
(Medical Xpress)—Patients with diabetes who are depressed are much more likely to develop episodes of dangerously low blood sugars, or hypoglycemia, than are those who are not depressed, a new study has ...
Driving and hands-free talking lead to spike in errors, study shows
Talking on a hands-free device while behind the wheel can lead to a sharp increase in errors that could imperil other drivers on the road, according to new research from the University of Alberta.