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Surgeons in L.A. Focus on Twin Baby Girls Born Joined at Top of Head

Aired August 05, 2002 - 12:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: At this hour, surgeons in Los Angeles are focused on twin baby girls who were born joined at the top of their heads. The tricky operation to separate the two is expected to take some 10 hours and involves dozens of medical experts.

CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen now joins us with more.

Boy, what a procedure?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's incredible. I was speaking about an hour ago with the folks at UCLA, and they say right now, this is about an hour ago, the girls are being wheeled into surgery. Right now, the surgery is expected to last 10 hours. So we will learn later on tonight how the surgery went.

Let's talk a little bit about the girls. They've been called los dos Marias, because they are both named Maria. This is Maria Theresa (ph) and Maria Dejesus (ph). They were born in a rural area of Guatemala. They turned one a couple of weeks ago, they've been at UCLA since June,

everybody wants to know what is the prognosis for these girls once they're separated. And unfortunately, it's very hard to answer that question. That's because twins who are joined at the top of the head is so unusual. I mean, conjoined twins are unusual enough, but only 2 percent of conjoined twins are fused together at the top of the head.

So let's talk a little bit about what the girls have going for them and what they don't have going for them. What they have going for them is that MRIs have shown two distinct brains that are separated by a membrane.

So the head surgeon for this operation said, we don't anticipate having to cut through any brain tissue.

Another thing that they have going for them is that arteries that supply their brains with blood appear to be distinct and separate.

What they don't have going for them is that the veins that drain the brains out are not separate. The veins from one girl drain to the other girl. They sort of crisscross each other. So what the surgeons are going to be doing today is getting it so that they drain into themselves, they drain normally, and they he have to keep those veins functioning while they do that , or else the girls could have a stroke.

So that's the big challenge for the surgeons today, again, to get those brains to drain into the girls own bodies rather than to the other girl's bodies. the other challenge they face is that they have already done a procedure to stretch the skin so that when they are separated, they can cover the wound. However, that leaves them very vulnerable to infection. So infection is the other thing that they're worried about with these girls?

PHILLIPS: And of course everybody wants to know, what's the chance of survival for both of them? Is it usually one survives?

COHEN: Again, you can't really say, because this is so unusual, is there's not a good data set to say, well, of the, you know, 75 operations, there just hasn't been that many. However, what we can say about these girls is that they have beaten all the odds. I mean, they were 4.4 pounds together when they were born, and they were tiny.

And many, many twins in this situation or conjoined twins in general, don't even make past their birth. Their stillborn or they die shortly thereafter. So these girls have really beaten the odds, just by celebration their first birthday.

PHILLIPS: I know they are so cute. Now they are rolling around, and they have hair. Remember when they had no hair?

COHEN: And they say a few words, apparently in Spanish, obviously. They appear to be healthy and happy. What the doctors have said is, you know, we will consider it successful if after the operation and after the recovery, they are as happy they were before the procedure.

PHILLIPS: And I have to ask you this, and it's very technical, and there is a million different ways to answer that. How does a birth like this even happen?

COHEN: It's not completely understood, but what they think happens is that there is a single egg which is supposed to separate into two eggs, and that's how you get genetically identical twins. You'll notice for all these conjoined twins, they're the same gender. They're genetically identifiable twins. So again, a single egg is supposed to fully separate, giving two different babies. What happens here is that apparently the egg does not fully separate, so some of the body parts are still joined together.

PHILLIPS: So you will be checking in with these doctors, moment by moment, and find out -- you'll let us know as soon as...

COHEN: Absolutely. Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.

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