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CNN Live Today
Conjoined Twins
Aired October 20, 2003 - 11:39 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Doctors this morning began the first phase of the separation process for a conjoined twins from the Philippines. The 18-month-old boys went into surgery around 9:00 Eastern at a New York hospital.
Elizabeth Cohen is here to tell us more in our "Daily Dose."
Good morning.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
This is just the first of what will be many surgeries to separate Carl and Clarence Degary (ph) twins. As Daryn said, they're from the Philippines, and this is happening at the Children's Hospital of Montepiorey (ph) in New York.
And what they're doing in this first procedure is interesting. They're trying to stretch the skin so that when the boys are separated, they'll have skin to go over the tops of their skulls, to go over the wounds. That's the first thing.
They'll also today be doing what's called a craniotomy. They're actually going to make little windows into the skull to see what the vessels inside look like. Now they do, even without doing that craniotomy, know that the boys share many vessels.
So if the boys hold up well enough during the surgery, what they'll try to do is actually tie off some of those vessels so that they won't share quite so many, and that's sort of the hope right there.
Now, this one, they're going to do a second procedure in two to three weeks, to do some more tying off, and then they'll be doing probably around four to six, or three to five actually before they do the final one. That means the final actual separation won't happen for several months probably.
KAGAN: So they still have some time down the road there, which brings to mind the Egyptian boys in Texas. And how are they doing?
COHEN: They're proceeding. Their procedure was done October 12th. They were separated. And what doctors did to Mohammed and Ahmed Ibrahim on October 12th was, again, to separate them. Mohammed is off the ventilator and breathing on his own, which is good news. Ahmed has not done as well. He has had three seizures, and he is just now coming out of a drug-induced coma. The doctors put him in that coma, because they wanted to decrease the blood flow to the brain, the blood flow (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from the brain can be more bleeding, more swelling, so they put him in a coma so that wouldn't happen.
Now what's interesting, I was talking to folks who were doing the surgery from the hospital where they're doing the first surgery we talked about, and they said this pediatric neurosurgeon community is very small. It's about 120 people in the whole country and they talked to each other. And so what the New Yorkers have learned is, try to do this slowly, do it over a series of several so that maybe that last one can be shorter and less dramatic.
KAGAN: Absolutely. All right, Elizabeth, thank you for the latest on those boys, all adorable, all four of them.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 20, 2003 - 11:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Doctors this morning began the first phase of the separation process for a conjoined twins from the Philippines. The 18-month-old boys went into surgery around 9:00 Eastern at a New York hospital.
Elizabeth Cohen is here to tell us more in our "Daily Dose."
Good morning.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
This is just the first of what will be many surgeries to separate Carl and Clarence Degary (ph) twins. As Daryn said, they're from the Philippines, and this is happening at the Children's Hospital of Montepiorey (ph) in New York.
And what they're doing in this first procedure is interesting. They're trying to stretch the skin so that when the boys are separated, they'll have skin to go over the tops of their skulls, to go over the wounds. That's the first thing.
They'll also today be doing what's called a craniotomy. They're actually going to make little windows into the skull to see what the vessels inside look like. Now they do, even without doing that craniotomy, know that the boys share many vessels.
So if the boys hold up well enough during the surgery, what they'll try to do is actually tie off some of those vessels so that they won't share quite so many, and that's sort of the hope right there.
Now, this one, they're going to do a second procedure in two to three weeks, to do some more tying off, and then they'll be doing probably around four to six, or three to five actually before they do the final one. That means the final actual separation won't happen for several months probably.
KAGAN: So they still have some time down the road there, which brings to mind the Egyptian boys in Texas. And how are they doing?
COHEN: They're proceeding. Their procedure was done October 12th. They were separated. And what doctors did to Mohammed and Ahmed Ibrahim on October 12th was, again, to separate them. Mohammed is off the ventilator and breathing on his own, which is good news. Ahmed has not done as well. He has had three seizures, and he is just now coming out of a drug-induced coma. The doctors put him in that coma, because they wanted to decrease the blood flow to the brain, the blood flow (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from the brain can be more bleeding, more swelling, so they put him in a coma so that wouldn't happen.
Now what's interesting, I was talking to folks who were doing the surgery from the hospital where they're doing the first surgery we talked about, and they said this pediatric neurosurgeon community is very small. It's about 120 people in the whole country and they talked to each other. And so what the New Yorkers have learned is, try to do this slowly, do it over a series of several so that maybe that last one can be shorter and less dramatic.
KAGAN: Absolutely. All right, Elizabeth, thank you for the latest on those boys, all adorable, all four of them.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
