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American Morning

Separated Guatemalan Twins Return to U.S.

Aired May 23, 2003 - 07:18   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.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Those two little Guatemalan girls, who were joined at the head and then separated last summer in a marathon operation, have been flown back to the U.S. for treatment.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here now with an update on their condition.

Things are not looking terrific, are they?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this certainly is a setback. And it's hard to forget the images of these two girls, certainly when they were conjoined. This is a very rare sort of thing obviously. One in about a million births where you see the babies conjoined as we saw them, the images back from August of last year now.

They underwent a very successful operation, 23 hours in length, a lot of optimism swirling around the operation at that time. But already, as even back then, Heidi, people started to realize that there were some problems. One of the babies, Maria Teresa, had to be rushed back to the operating room shortly after that first operation, a drain placed in the brain to drain some of the fluid that had accumulated. They eventually had to go back to Guatemalan.

But now, as you correctly pointed out, they are back earlier than expected. They were going to come back anyway for a follow-up appointment, but they're back earlier than expected for two reasons. Maria Teresa appears to have had a significant infection involving that drain in the valve draining the fluid from the brain. And Maria de Jesus also had seizures, which oftentimes can be a symptom of all sorts of things, such as meningitis, high fevers, things like that.

They're both going to get checked out. It's a significant setback, but, you know, this was a huge operation, and to have complications like this is not unexpected. It's hard to say how they're going to do long term from this, but this is sort of the process now. This is going to be their process for quite some time.

COLLINS: And let's talk about that for a moment. What do you see as if they get through this incident which right now is pretty critical, what will be the next step? This is going to be a long rehabilitation.

GUPTA: Well, when we talk about such young children, you talk about them being able to meet their milestones. Are they going to catch up in terms of their education, in terms of their development -- things like that? That's still quite possible, although it may take a while for them to actually start meeting any of those milestones. These girls shared 10 percent of their brain, which is actually a small amount relatively speaking to some of the conjoined twins. So, there is some optimism there as far as their brain development in the long run. It's hard to say. There is just not that much data. This is an unusual thing, so it's hard to say, well, X percentage of patients do like this, X percent don't. There are just not that many patients to choose from.

So, so far they look like they're hopefully going to still be able to catch up at some point.

COLLINS: We sure hope so. A lot of people are really, really pulling for these two girls.

GUPTA: Yes, absolutely, the two Marias.

COLLINS: Yes. All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much this morning.

GUPTA: All right, thank you.

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 May 23, 2003 - 07:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Those two little Guatemalan girls, who were joined at the head and then separated last summer in a marathon operation, have been flown back to the U.S. for treatment.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here now with an update on their condition.

Things are not looking terrific, are they?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this certainly is a setback. And it's hard to forget the images of these two girls, certainly when they were conjoined. This is a very rare sort of thing obviously. One in about a million births where you see the babies conjoined as we saw them, the images back from August of last year now.

They underwent a very successful operation, 23 hours in length, a lot of optimism swirling around the operation at that time. But already, as even back then, Heidi, people started to realize that there were some problems. One of the babies, Maria Teresa, had to be rushed back to the operating room shortly after that first operation, a drain placed in the brain to drain some of the fluid that had accumulated. They eventually had to go back to Guatemalan.

But now, as you correctly pointed out, they are back earlier than expected. They were going to come back anyway for a follow-up appointment, but they're back earlier than expected for two reasons. Maria Teresa appears to have had a significant infection involving that drain in the valve draining the fluid from the brain. And Maria de Jesus also had seizures, which oftentimes can be a symptom of all sorts of things, such as meningitis, high fevers, things like that.

They're both going to get checked out. It's a significant setback, but, you know, this was a huge operation, and to have complications like this is not unexpected. It's hard to say how they're going to do long term from this, but this is sort of the process now. This is going to be their process for quite some time.

COLLINS: And let's talk about that for a moment. What do you see as if they get through this incident which right now is pretty critical, what will be the next step? This is going to be a long rehabilitation.

GUPTA: Well, when we talk about such young children, you talk about them being able to meet their milestones. Are they going to catch up in terms of their education, in terms of their development -- things like that? That's still quite possible, although it may take a while for them to actually start meeting any of those milestones. These girls shared 10 percent of their brain, which is actually a small amount relatively speaking to some of the conjoined twins. So, there is some optimism there as far as their brain development in the long run. It's hard to say. There is just not that much data. This is an unusual thing, so it's hard to say, well, X percentage of patients do like this, X percent don't. There are just not that many patients to choose from.

So, so far they look like they're hopefully going to still be able to catch up at some point.

COLLINS: We sure hope so. A lot of people are really, really pulling for these two girls.

GUPTA: Yes, absolutely, the two Marias.

COLLINS: Yes. All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much this morning.

GUPTA: All right, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.