Top UK surgeons have performed an astonishing, gruelling operation to seperate one year-old conjoined twins who were attached at the head.
The patients, Minal and Mirha, from Pakistan, are said to be recovering in the Turkish hospital where they were treated and are expected to make a full recovery.
The 14-hour procedure at the Ankara Bilkent City Hospital on 19 July was performed by Professor Noor ul Owase Jeelani, a pediatric neurosurgeon based at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The painstaking surgery included a local team of medics and was completed in two surgical stages over a period of three months.
It was a particularly risky task given where the twins were conjoined — at the front of the head — which meant they shared vital blood vessels and brain tissue.
Minal and Mirha, from Pakistan, were successfully in a 14-hour operation that took place over three months.
Surgeons used cutting-edge virtual reality headsets to ‘rehearse’ the painstaking procedure
‘They’re making an excellent recovery, really wonderful,’ Professor Jeelani told Sky News.
‘They should be in a position to go back to Pakistan in a few weeks.’
The expansive team of surgeons called on the help of a special type of virtual reality to help prepare for the highly complex operation.
The surgeons rehearsed their movements using so-called Mixed Reality (MR) technology, which involves combining 3D images, such as medical scans, with the physical world.
As well as allowing the doctors to practice the surgery, the MR device also helped Prof Jeelani and his team train the medics at Ankara hospital in Turkey on what to expect.
Prof Jeelani is a world-leading expert in highly technical operations such as this.
He has led several surgeries involving conjoined twins including three-year-old boys in Brazil in 2022, one-year-old twin girls in Israel in 2021, and in 2019 twin two-year-old girls from Pakistan.
The work was supported by Gemini Untwined, a charity founded by Mr Jaleeni to raise funds for siblings born joined at the head.
According to Gemini figures, one in 60,000 births results in conjoined twins, and only 5% of these are craniopagus children.
The life expectancy of twins who are not separated is very low. About 40% of twins fused at the head are stillborn or die during labour.
