Two pairs of Siamese twins reach AIIMS after successful surgery of Jagga-Balia

Exactly a year after the conjoined craniopagus twins from Odisha, Jagga, and Balia, were brought to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to be operated, two more pairs of Siamese twins have arrived at the hospital this month. The two pairs, one of whom is from Uttar Pradesh, and other from Delhi are now being assessed to be separated at the hospital as Jagga-Balia still wait to be discharged.

The new sets of twins are all girls. Of these, one pair was born at a Delhi Hospital on Friday.

"We received Naresh Kumar and his wife late on Friday night. While the Ultrasound made this clear that she was carrying twins, we did not know that they were twins until she was operated later that night. Girls are joined from the chest down below and have only one opening for the passage of waste. Though the girls are stable, we immediately referred them to AIIMS," said Dr Surendra Bisht, Dayanand Hospital.

The other pair of Siamese girls has come from a small town in west Uttar Pradesh and are only 67 days old. As per the sources, they were first brought to the hospital two months back and have been visiting since to be separated. Dr Minu Bajpai, Professor, Department of Pediatric Surgery, and her team are taking care of this pair, who have sensitive kidneys and high chances of renal failure.

Among this, the two brothers from Odisha, Jagga and Balia, in what was one of the rarest surgeries in the country, were separated in a 21-hour long surgery, where a team of 30 specialists looked into it, which started on October 25, 2017, at 9 AM and got over the next day at 3 AM.

A team of 125 medical professionals from the AIIMS was involved in the operation, including 50 paramedical staff and 75 doctors from all departments. The operation was headed by Dr AK Mahapatra, Chief of Neurosciences Centre, AIIMS.

A polylactic acid model was created on which a team of doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) ran two eight-hour-long dry rehearsals in the operation theatre followed by a 24-hour-long marathon operation to make sure that everything ran smoothly. This was the first time in the country that a 3D model was used for practice.