Conjoined twins are separated in Saudi Arabia
Doctors in Saudi Arabia have separated Yemeni conjoined twins in a 15-hour operation.
The boys, Yousef and Yassin, who were born conjoined at the head in October 2020, underwent a third and final procedure to separate them at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh this week.
Dr Mutasem Al Zughbi led a team of 24 specialists, including paediatric neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons and anaesthesia staff, who carried out the operation.
It was a complicated procedure, said Dr Abdullah Al Rabeeah, adviser to the Royal Court, supervisor general of King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre and head of the conjoined twins surgical and medical team.
The twins shared the cerebral venous sinuses and parts of the brain. Earlier operations were carried out to separate the cerebral veins and brain adhesions, and place skin-expanding equipment to help cover the area after the twins were separated.
Yassin suffered bleeding during the operation and is in a critical condition.
The twins’ family live in a mud-brick house in Al Trais, a poor village in Hadramawt province, south-east Yemen.
In May last year, King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman paid for the boys to fly to Saudi Arabia with their family for treatment.
Mohammed Abdul Rahman, the father of the twins, thanked King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed for their help and generosity.
A month earlier, Dr Sami Al Amoudi, of Hadramawt’s Health Department, told The National that a cardiogram showed the twins had “separable brains” that gave doctors hope that an operation would be successful.
The twins are the 51st to be separated by the Saudi Conjoined Twins Programme since it began in 1990.
Twins from 23 countries on three continents have been separated under the initiative.
Conjoined twins occur in every 50,000 to 200,000 births, a Sao Paulo University Medical School study found. In South-West Asia and Africa, this rate increases to one in every 14,000 to 25,000 births.
The Saudi authorities have also flown conjoined twin girls Awda and Rahma from Yemen to the kingdom to determine whether it will be possible for them to be separated.