USA: Separation surgery for conjoined twins endra and Maliyah Herrin could not have gone better, says chief doctor

The long surgery that separated a pair of 4-year-old conjoined-twin girls could not have gone better according to the chief surgeon, but the Utah sisters face a long road to recovery, doctors said on Tuesday (August 19, 2006). Kendra and Maliyah Herrin were born with their bodies joined at the abdomen and with a common pelvis. They shared a kidney and a liver while each controlled one leg. Of the 16-hour surgery, Rebecka Meyers, the Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City said, "Kendra and Maliyah are now back in ICU in separate beds, they are doing very very well. Surgery went extremely well. It was long but no surprises. I don't think it could have gone better." The girls will be in the hospital for at least two to three months while the wounds from the separation operation heal. Maliyah will be placed on dialysis until a kidney transplant can be found. One of the doctors in the operating room, Michael Matlak said, "The challenge was that we had an enormous wound because the twins were joined so extensively from the chest all the way down to the pelvis. As I was carrying her to the other room, I was fearful we were not going to be able to put her back together." Infection is a large concern because the wound is so big. Meyers added, "This is a big operation but it's only the start of the healing process. I would imagine that these girls are going to be healing from this operation for at least the next two or three months and we as doctors have to see them through the healing process and in Maliyah's case we have to see her safely get through a kidney transplant, so this is the beginning not the end." Earlier the parents of the twins, Jake and Erin Herrin, spoke to reporters. "We'd just like to formally announce that we have two separate little girls," their father, Jake Herrin said. The surgery is the first known separation surgery attempted on twins with a shared kidney. Conjoined twins occurs when an embryo fails to completely separate within two weeks of fertilization. The condition is rare, once in every 50,000 to 100,00 live births and is more common in female than male twins. Most conjoined twins only survive only a few days. The twins were hospitalized several weeks ago so that doctors could begin stretching their skin. A child psychologist also prepared them mentally by giving them conjoined-twin dolls.

ITN Source | August 10, 2006

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