Two sets of conjoined twins admitted to AIIMS for surgery

Two sets of conjoined twins have been admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here, nearly nine months after doctors at the premier institute successfully separated a pair of twins from Odisha.

The two sets of twins, one from Uttar Pradesh and the other from Delhi, are joined at the hip and a team of experts is evaluating their condition, a senior doctor at the hospital said today.

The children are under the supervision of Dr Minu Bajpai, professor, Department of Paediatric Surgery at the hospital.

The twins from Uttar Pradesh are around three months old and were admitted to AIIMS on June 30. The twins from Delhi are less than a month old. They were referred to AIIMS from the Swami Dayanand Hospital.

According to the doctors at AIIMS, they are studying the complexities in the anatomy of the babies.

"We are investigating both the cases," one of the doctors said.

Last year, the doctors at the premier hospital had performed a surgery in two phases to separate the conjoined twins from Odisha.

The first phase of the surgery was performed on August 28, when the doctors created a venous bypass to separate the veins shared by the babies that returned blood to the heart from the brain.

The final separation of the twins through a 21-hour-long surgery was carried out by a team of around 30 specialists from the institute's neurosurgery, neuro-anaesthesia and plastic surgery departments on October 25.

The twins from Odisha are still admitted at the AIIMS. A senior doctor at the hospital said they were likely to be discharged soon.