Singapore surgeons separate conjoined twins

A pair of infant conjoined twin girls fused at the lower back were successfully separated during an operation in Singapore today.

The surgery on the four-month-old Korean sisters took place at the city-state’s Raffles Hospital, where two adult Iranian conjoined twins died recently after a marathon session to separate them.

Dr Prem Kumar, a hospital spokesman, said the girls were still undergoing plastic and reconstructive surgery. He gave no more details.

The twins’ father, Min Seong-Joon, had been told by surgeons his daughters had an 85% chance of survival.

The successful procedure came just two weeks after a team of surgeons from Raffles Hospital failed to separate Ladan and Laleh Bijani, Iranian twins born joined at the head. The 29-year-old sisters died in the operating room 90 minutes apart from massive blood loss.

The Bijani sisters met the family of the infant Korean twins in June and encouraged them to go ahead with the surgery, the reports said.

The Korean twins are the third set of conjoined twins to undergo risky separation surgery in Singapore in two years.

A team led by paediatric surgeon Dr Keith Goh separated two 18-month-old Nepalese twins who were joined at the head in November 2001.