Nine-month-Old conjoined twins successfully separated.

KARACHI -- Muhammad Ayan and Muhammad Aman, born as conjoined twins to Mr and Mrs Israr Ahmed, are now living as healthy children after a successful separation surgery performed at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH).

Ayan and Aman were Omphalopagus type of conjoined twins, in which the bodies of the two are joined at the abdomen and several internal organs are shared, including liver and sometimes the intestines. The twin brothers shared a small portion of the liver.

'It was an extremely challenging journey for us. Before coming to AKUH, I had a dream that Ayan and Aman were separate. That dream gave me hope', said Israr, while narrating the events that led him to AKUH. 'My family and I were convinced that this hospital is for the rich and receiving treatment from here will never be a possibility for us. But, my Allah made the Aga Khan University Hospital the saviour of my children. The doctors told us to not worry about the expenses, as they would be taken care of by the Patient Welfare Programme.' Conjoined twinning is a very rare congenital anomaly, with an overall incidence of 1 in 250,000 births. This happens when the embryo does not separate successfully in the mother's womb to form two individuals. Although, there is no known cause for the conjoining, it can be diagnosed early in the pregnancy through an ultrasound. While surgery is the only method of separating the conjoined twins, it cannot be performed in all cases. This is because, the complexity of and survival rates after the surgery depends primarily upon the joining sites and the type and number of organs joined internally. To perform this exceptionally difficult surgery, a multi-disciplinary team of highly skilled healthcare experts came together to meticulously plan and organise their efforts. These teams included Doctors, Nurses and Technicians from Paediatric Surgery, Anaesthesiology, and Radiology amongst active participants, and Gastrointestinal Surgery and Neurosurgery amongst those on stand-by. The nature of this surgery is such that it demands double the amount of resources and concurrent functioning of all teams to manage and save both lives. Prior...