The Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) has successfully separated four-month-old conjoined twins.

It took a multi-disciplinary team of 38 specialists, including twenty-five consultant surgeons from KNH and the University of Nairobi to make the procedure a success.

Through a press briefing by the hospital said that the twin brothers underwent a 15-hour surgery on Sunday without any major complications.

Surgeons who performed the operation said the twins were conjoined in the chest and abdomen.

“Our highly specialized team overcame the complications of the surgery including the holes in the twin’s hearts, a shared liver, and two hearts in one cavity. We’ve been dealing with two kids who had abnormalities on the heart independently. They were joined in the abdomen, which means that apart from the liver joining the two, the muscles and the skin were being shared,” one of the doctors said.

Pediatric surgeon Dr Joel Lessan said the twins were sharing a liver, with two hearts enclosed in one chamber.

“One had multiple holes in the heart, and the other had abnormal blood vessels emerging from his heart. We were separating two kids who had abnormalities in the heart,” said Dr Lessan.

Through an analysis by the cardiology medic team, it was also discovered that one of the conjoined twins had pulmonary hypertension which caused blood to flow through the lungs.

The baby’s blood pressure was later contained, the doctor added.

“The twins are in stable condition within the hospital’s intensive care unit, and we hoped to discharge them soon.
We hope that they continue improving. We cannot tell when they will be out of the ICU because these were like ten operations in one. There was operation of the skin, bone, heart and the liver. We are proud that this is the first time we are doing it,” Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) CEO Evans Kamuri said.

The hospital has another pair of conjoined twins whose fate of separation is still pending the clinicians’ approval.

By Irene Mutu