{"id":24592,"date":"2017-10-27T21:29:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T20:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=24592"},"modified":"2017-10-27T21:29:14","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T20:29:14","slug":"indian-surgeons-separate-conjoined-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/27\/indian-surgeons-separate-conjoined-twins\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Surgeons Separate Conjoined Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Surgeons in Delhi have separated twin boys who were conjoined at the tops of their heads.<\/h2>\n<p>Two-year-olds Jaga and Kalia underwent 16 hours of surgery, and are now in the intensive care unit, according to doctors.<\/p>\n<p>The first of its kind in India, a team of 40 doctors carried out the surgery at a state-run hospital.<\/p>\n<p>The boys were born with a very rare condition known as craniopagus, which occurs once in about three million births, leaving the babies with shared blood vessels and brain tissues.<\/p>\n<p>The surgery was performed on 28 August when the doctors created a bypass to separate the shared veins that return blood to the heart from the brain.<\/p>\n<p>Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Science, told the Press Trust of India that the &#8220;next 18 days would be extremely critical to ascertain the success of the surgery&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>50% of those affected die within 24 hours, doctors say, meaning the boys were already beating the odds before the surgery began.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Conjoined-twins-India-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-24594\" src=\"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Conjoined-twins-India-2-300x215.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Conjoined-twins-India-2-300x215.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Conjoined-twins-India-2-586x420.jpg 586w, https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Conjoined-twins-India-2.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;Both the children have other health issues as well. While Jaga has heart issues, Kalia has kidney problems,&#8221; neurosurgeon A K Mahapatra said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Though initially Jaga was healthier, now his condition has deteriorated. Kalia is better,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The most challenging job after the separation was to provide a skin cover on both sides of the brain for the children as the surgery had left large holes on their heads,&#8221; said Maneesh Singhal, a plastic surgeon who was a part of the operating team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The skin was generated from the expansion of two balloons which were placed inside their heads during the first surgery in August,&#8221; Singhal told AFP on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The next step will be reconstruction of their skulls,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Surgeons in Delhi have separated twin boys who were conjoined at the tops of their heads. Two-year-olds Jaga and Kalia underwent 16 hours of surgery, and are now in the intensive care unit, according to doctors. The first of its kind in India, a team of 40 doctors carried out the surgery at a state-run [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":24593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}