US surgeons separate 10-month-old conjoined twin girls

HOUSTON — Doctors are optimistic that 10-month-old formerly conjoined twin girls will survive after a recent surgery that separated them.

It took 26 hours last week to separate the girls, Knatalyne Hope Mata and Adeline Faith, who shared a chest wall, lungs, a part of their heart lining, diaphragm, liver, colon, intestines and pelvic area, according to lead surgeon Dr Darrell Cass. The surgery, which took place at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, had been planned since before they were born last April.

“The surgery was not without its challenges, with the girls sharing several organ systems, but we’re very pleased with how they’re doing,” Dr Cass told the Houston Chronicle for a story published yesterday (Feb 23). “We’re very optimistic they can both have a really great outcome.”

The girls were in stable but critical condition, will be on ventilators for the next week and are expected to be in intensive care for a couple of months, then have more surgery later.

Dr Cass said about five hours into the operation, Adeline’s blood pressure dropped to where the surgical team needed to manually pump her heart to resuscitate her. She recovered after about five to eight minutes.

“It seemed forever at the time,” Dr Cass said.

The surgical team included eight nurses, six anesthesiologists and 12 surgeons.

The twins’ mother, Elysse Mata, and her husband, John, moved across Texas to Houston last year to be near their daughters. She said they were “so grateful to all of the surgeons and everyone who cared for our daughters and gave them the incredible chance to live separate lives”.

The couple also has a 5-year-old son.

The conjoined condition of the girls was discovered during a routine ultrasound in January 2014. Each weighed 1.56kg at birth. They have since been in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, and each has grown to more than 9kg.

“Seeing the girls wheeled out of the operating room as separate patients, on separate gurneys, the ramifications for them to live private lives was even more poignant and powerful than I expected,” said Dr Cass, co-director of Texas Children’s Fetal Center and associate professor of surgery, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine. “It literally brought tears to my eyes.” AP