Los Angeles Doctors Separate Guatemalan Twin Girls Joined at Head

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 07, 2002

Los Angeles Doctors Separate Guatemalan Twin Girls Joined at Head

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In a 20-hour-long operation completed Tuesday, doctors at the medical center of the Universityof California in Los Angeles (UCLA) separated Guatemalan twin girls joined at the head, the medical center said.

But one twin, Maria Teresa, was sent back for operation to treat a hematoma in her brain, said the center's director Michael Karpf. The second surgery took longer than expected, he said.

Cris Embleton, director of the Healing the Children, said that the best possible care was being given to the girls, who were brought from Guatemala to Los Angeles by his nonprofit group for the 1.5-million-dollar operation.

"We want to thank the community for their love and prayers and their financial support of this operation... we are very, very grateful," Embleton said, adding that there is risk in the operation.

The surgery, which began Monday afternoon at the UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, was conducted by a team of 50 doctors to separate Maria Teresa and Maria de Jesus Quiej-Alvarez and appeared to be successful.

But doctors said they have to wait until the kids can play, laugh and cry like normal baby children.

One girl lost a lot of blood during the operation but was giventransfusions. "There was absolutely no major trouble that was unforeseen in this procedure," said Dr. Houman Hemmati, who joinedthe operation.

The twin girls, born in rural Guatemala, were connected at the top of the skull and faced in opposite directions. While they shared bone and blood vessels, their brains were not meshed in a case that occurs in fewer than one in 1 million live births.

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