Two 7-year-old conjoined twins were in satisfactory condition Wednesday after their separation in a 14-hour operation a day earlier in Vietnam, a Japanese Red Cross official said.
A team of 72 doctors and nurses separated twins Viet and Duc in the operation at Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. It was believed the first separation of conjoined twins who had been joined for more than seven years.The Japanese Red Cross provided some medical equipment and medicine needed in the operation, Nemoto said.
Viet and Duc were joined at the pelvis and had a single pair of legs. With their two torsos, they shared a large bowel, anus, bladder, genitals, one pair of kidneys and a major artery, leaving doctors with the difficult ethical question of how to divide their shared parts and give both a chance of survival.
Japanese newspapers reported Wednesday that each twin received one leg, while the single organs went to Duc, the more healthy twin. Viet has been comatose since May 1986.