HYDERABAD: A whopping Rs. 10 crores is what could be required to attempt the surgery at separating Vani and Veena, the conjoined twins at Niloufer Hospital.

The four-year-old sisters joined at the head, known as `Craniopagus' in medical parlance, have been in hospital for several months awaiting a separation surgery.

But with no medical institution in the country prepared to take up the surgery, the case has been referred to experts in the U.S., who put the surgery estimate up to $ 2 million.

"After the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) expressed its helplessness in taking up the surgery, we referred the case to experts in the U.S.

They said separation is possible," says A. Bharathi Reddy, Head of Paediatric Surgery, Niloufer Hospital.

Stupendous task

Since the surgery has to be performed in several stages, the twins along with a local team of doctors and attendants will have to stay there for a few months and clubbed with travel and other expenses, the total cost could end up at around Rs. 10 crores, she says.

Some 50 doctors of different specialisations would have to work as a team, if surgery is to be done.

Though a few separation surgeries were taken up in the country, the case of Veena and Vani has turned complicated as they share a single brain.

"In earlier cases, patients had only their heads joined.

But in this case, the brain is being shared and a single blood vessel leads there.

While retaining the same for one child, all this including venous grafting has to be done for the other," she says.

Equipment lacking

To complicate matters, state-of-the art equipment required is also not available in the country, doctors say. The US doctors' opinions have been informed to officials and a decision is awaited. The twins born in a poor family in Guntur, were disowned by the parents and since then they have been in different hospitals before being shifted to Niloufer last year.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail