 | | Dr. Jorge Lazareff, director of the UCLA Pediatric Neurosurgery Program and lead neurosurgeon, smiles at a news conference, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 |
One-year-old Guatemalan twins joined at the head were separated in a marathon operation that ended early Tuesday, but one sister was returned to surgery a few hours later because of bleeding on her brain.Maria Teresa Quiej Alvarez and her sister, Maria de Jesus, were in critical but stable condition Tuesday night at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center, but doctors were optimistic about their recovery. They were expected to remain sedated and using breathing tubes for days. "I'm absolutely positive they will do OK. I'm absolutely positive if you go and visit them in five years they will be leading a normal life," said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, the lead neurosurgeon. The doctors' sense was that the girls fared well, but it remained to be determined whether they suffered any brain damage, said Dr. John Frazee, another neurosurgeon. "They're moving, which is a good sign. There's no way of knowing what the state of affairs is for another week," Frazee said. After the 22-hour risky separation surgery, Maria Teresa was wheeled back into the operating room for nearly five more hours because of a buildup of blood on her brain, Lazareff said. The girls were born attached at the top of the skull and faced opposite directions. While the two shared bone and blood vessels, they had separate brains. Cases like theirs occur in fewer than one in 2.5 million live births. In the riskiest part of the surgery, doctors had to separate blood vessels the two girls shared and decide which belonged to each child. That was followed by plastic surgery to extend each girl's scalp to cover the area where they had been attached. The two face still more operations to reconstruct their skulls. Surgeons around the world have performed cranial separations only five other times in the past decade, and not all twins have survived. (Agencies) | 一對僅一歲的危地馬拉連腦女嬰在經歷了一場馬拉松式的手術之后，終于被分開了。手術于8月6日早上結束，但不幸的是僅僅在幾小時之后，其中一名女嬰因頭部出血而被再次送回手術室。 手術后當晚，這對連體姐妹瑪利亞·特蕾莎·阿爾瓦雷斯和瑪利亞·赫蘇斯留在加利福尼亞洛杉磯醫學中心接受觀察，她們還沒有脫離危險但情況還算穩定。不過醫生對她們的康復是充滿信心的。在接下來的一段時間里，這對姐妹仍需要依靠鎮定劑和氧氣管維持生命。 主治醫生神經外科醫生拉扎雷夫博士說："我對她們的康復感到非常樂觀。我敢保證，如果你5年后再去看望這對姐妹，會看到她們已經過上了正常人的生活。" 而另一位神經外科醫生約翰·弗雷齊博士卻認為，雖然目前這對姐妹的情況很好，但還不能確保她們的腦部沒有受到損傷。 弗雷齊說："她們能夠活動，這是一個很好的跡象。但在一個星期內還無法確定她們的情況究竟如何"。  拉扎雷夫說，在長達22小時的險象環生分離手術后，瑪利亞·特蕾沙由于腦部積血而被推回了手術室，手術又繼續了將近5小時之久。
兩姐妹生下來頭骨就相連，而臉則朝向相反的方向。她們共用骨骼和血管，但大腦卻是各自獨立的。這種情況出現的幾率不到250萬分之一。 該手術最危險的部分在于，醫生必須分離兩姐妹共享的血管并判斷哪一部分該屬于誰。醫生在完成分離手術后還要對她們進行外科整形，使每個女嬰的頭皮都能覆蓋她們被分離的部位。 接下來兩姐妹還將接受一系列修復頭骨的手術。 除了這次手術之外，在過去十年中，全世界僅實行了五例類似的頭部分離外科手術，但并不是所有的雙胞胎都能夠存活下來。 (中國日報網站譯) |
Updated: 2002-08-09 01:00
