Spinal cord conjoined twins separated, surgery progressing smoothly

Bangalore, Nov 6 (UNI) Surgeons tonight successfully separated the spine of two-year-old Lakshmi, the conjoined twin from Bihar, undergoing a complicated operation to be seperated from her parasitic twin.

Doctors at a superspeciality hospital here, who began the 40-hour-long surgery this morning, were successful in separating the spinal cord that extended into Lakshmi's headless twin.

The condition of the baby was stable and there was no complications so far, hospital director and orthopaedic surgeon Sharan Patil said.

The 36-member strong team completed the ''most critical'' of the operation and were now set to separate the parasitic lower part of Lakshmi's body.

''Paediatric surgeons are now on with their job to separate the organs. Later, the orthopaedic surgeons will try to reconstruct the pelvic ring in the first stage of the operation,'' he added.

Lakshmi, an ischiopagus twin, had two bodies joined at her pelvis. Only one of the twins had a head, while the other was a parasite. Two pairs of legs and arms were formed at either end of the two adjoining torsos, thus appearing as a child with eight limbs.

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