Surgery on Thai twins ‘first of its kind’

THAI doctors yesterday announced they had performed an operation separating a pair of conjoined female infants, claiming it was the first successful operation of its sort in the world.

The girls, Panwad and Pantawan Tiyenjai, were so-called thoracopagus twins — with their bodies joined from chest to abdomen — and had connected hearts and livers, said an announcement from Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital.

What made their case unusual was that the upper chambers, or atriums, of their hearts were connected, with one pumping blood to the other, said Dr Somchai Sriyoschati.