Enab Baladi – Ras al-Ain
The city of Ras al-Ain in northwestern al-Hasakah witnessed a rare medical case involving the birth of conjoined twins connected at the abdomen and chest.
The birth occurred on April 23, under difficult circumstances, at the private Al-Jazeera Hospital, which has only one gynecologist.
The conjoined twins shared vital organs, necessitating their urgent transfer to Turkey for advanced medical care, amid dedicated efforts by medical staff to ensure their survival.
After their transfer to Turkey, the twins died due to organ failure, a result of sharing the liver and heart, causing early functional deficiency due to the dual pressure on these organs.
Conjoined twins
Conjoined twins are twins born with their bodies physically connected. This condition occurs once in every 50,000 to 60,000 births, and about 70% of conjoined twins are female, with most being stillborn.
Approximately 75% of conjoined twins are at least partially connected at the chest and share organs. If they have separate sets of organs, the chances of surgery and survival are greater than if they share the same organs. Generally, conjoined twins with a shared heart cannot be separated.
The condition of conjoined twins arises from incomplete splitting of the fertilized egg about 13 to 15 days after fertilization. Normally, the egg divides into two separate embryos, but in some cases, this division stops before it is complete, leading to the formation of two embryos that are attached in different areas of the body.
This condition is one of the most complex medical challenges, as separating the twins requires delicate surgery that depends on the extent of overlapping shared organs and the possibility of preserving the life of each twin post-surgery.
First case in Ras al-Ain
The Director of the Health Office in the local council of Ras al-Ain, Khalil al-Zaher, told Enab Baladi that the city had not previously recorded any case of conjoined twins.
Al-Zaher explained that the case was discovered following a cesarean section for a woman in the city, where it turned out that the two infants were conjoined at the abdomen and chest, which necessitated their transfer to Turkey for necessary tests and monitoring of their health condition.
He noted that after their condition stabilized, a detailed surgical separation operation was planned to be conducted by either Turkish doctors or doctors from Saudi Arabia contracted with medical organizations in Ankara, but the twins died due to early functional deficiency resulting from the dual pressure on those organs.
The separation of conjoined twins depends on the complexity of the merging of the organs, such as cases where the organs are sufficiently separated, and the success rate of the operation ranges between 70% and 90% according to modern medical expertise.
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