"Stable after final separation": doctors in Twins from Bangladesh

The twins, named Rabeya and Rukaya, were three years old last month and suffered from a rare embryologic disorder affecting about one to five million births.

Dhaka:

The Bangladeshi twins who had been joined at the head were recovering on Friday after Hungarian surgeons carried out a marathon 30-hour operation to separate their skull and brain.

The three-year-old twins, named Rabeya and Rukaya, suffered from a rare embryologic disorder, affecting about one in five to six million births.

They were "stable after the final separation," said Andras Csokay, a neurosurgeon at the foundation for the defenceless (ADPF), which organized the Hungarian surgical team of 35.

After the separation of the Dhaka Combined Military Hospital, the Csokay team began covering the wound with soft tissue generated by a process of tissue expansion carried out in Hungary.

Rafiqul Islam, the twins ' father, was relieved and delighted.

"The doctors separated my babies. I saw them with my own eyes. They are well now," said Islam, a teacher in the North-West rural district of Pabna.

He congratulated the doctors and added: "I hope my daughters will recover well, grow up healthy and lead a normal life."

Before the surgery, doctors said there was only a 50% chance that twins would survive.

According to ADPF, only a few operations aimed at separating the twins reunited at the top were successful.

The Hungarian association was founded in 2002 by Csokay and plastic surgeon Gergely Pataki to provide free surgery to the needy in Hungary and abroad.

Islam and his wife sought help from the group in 2017.

Last year in Bangladesh, during the first surgical phase, the blood vessels shared by the twins ' brains were separated during a 14-hour operation.

Then, in a second six-month phase beginning in January, Rabeya and Rukaya moved to Budapest, where doctors inserted an implant system to enlarge the scalp and soft tissues of the head.

More than 40 plastic surgery procedures were performed to fill extensors, change dressings and perform laser and regeneration wound treatment.

ADPF neurosurgeons and plastic surgeons, assisted by anesthetists, radiologists and pediatricians, have also used innovative 3D animation software to map both brains.

"It's one of the most difficult malformations I've ever seen," Pataki told AFP last month.

The Twins and Hungarian doctors returned to Bangladesh at the end of July before the final operation.
ADPF has performed about 500 reconstructive surgery operations in Asia and Africa, including for Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh.