Pygopagus Siamese Twins Successfully Separated In New York

Pygopagus Siamese twins successfully separated in New York

Two girls - Bellanie and Ballenie Camacho - have grown together in the region of the sacrum. Such Siamese twins are called pygopags, and the probability of their appearance is negligible - 17% of all Siamese twins, which, in turn, are born in one case in 200 thousand.

Photo: Maria Fareri Children Hospital /

11-month-old Siamese twins were successfully separated in New York. Two girls - Bellanie and Ballenie Camacho - have grown together in the region of the sacrum. Such Siamese twins are called pygopags, and the probability of their appearance is negligible - 17% of all Siamese twins, which, in turn, are born in one case in 200 thousand. The babies' parents, Laurilin Celadilla Marte and Marino Abel Camacho, thanked the staff of Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at a press conference dedicated to the successful operation. The couple have two more daughters - 10-year-old Sheily and 2-year-old Lina Bel.

The operation to separate the twins lasted 22 hours. Surgeons of a wide variety of specialties worked with the girls - neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, urologists, pediatricians, gastroenterologists and orthopedists. Bellani and Balleny had a common part of the gastrointestinal tract, bladder, genitals, and part of the spine. The chances of dying in children was quite high - about 23%, while one of the girls - Balleny, the smaller one - also had a congenital heart defect.

The babies were born on February 4, 2016 using a cesarean section. Lorilyn knew that she was expecting twins, but she did not even suspect that they would be pygopagus girls. Doctors in the Dominican Republic, where the family is from, warned Lorilyn and Abel that the weaker Balleny might die. Kamaho and his daughters flew to New York in the summer, and the girls gradually began to prepare for surgery. The children underwent several preliminary operations even before the separation - these were “preliminary” operations on the gastrointestinal tract, as well as reconstructive operations to facilitate the subsequent work of plastic surgeons. It was necessary to "stretch" the skin so that after separation it was "enough" for both girls, this process took several weeks.

The operation began on January 17 and lasted until the next morning. First, the doctors divided the gastrointestinal tract of the little patients - here was the main danger, since the girls had a common hypogastric artery, and so that the lower halves of the children did not experience problems with blood supply, the vessel had to be also divided. The next step was the separation of the spines, then the soft tissues - at this time, plastic surgeons prepared the skin to close the wounds. At the last stage, the genitourinary system of the pygopagi was divided.

The doctors said that the team that operated on Bellani and Balleny had been preparing for the operation for several months, meeting regularly and discussing the use of new technologies. The surgeons worked with a 3D model of the twins' lower half, created from the results of CT and MRI scans. Thanks to this preparation, the prognosis for both girls is good, on January 30 they should be transferred from the intensive care unit. rehabilitation will approximately take several weeks.

In October, MedNovosti talked about other Siamese twins - craniopagus, brothers Jadon and Alias MacDonald. In the course of a complex operation, the boys, who had grown together with their heads, were successfully separated, and 2 months after the separation, they were finally discharged from the hospital for transfer to a rehabilitation center. The kids were taken out on a red cart, under the wheels of which a red carpet was spread. More than 30 doctors and nurses who worked with them before and after the operation accompanied them in the corridor. A day earlier, a banquet had been held in honor of the transfer of the former craniopagus.

Source: Conjoined twin girls who shared spine, bladder, uterus and intestines separated in one of the riskiest surgeries ever performed

It is one of the most complex surgeries ever performed. In a press conference today, doctors said they successfully separated 11 month-old twin girls Ballenie and Bellanie Camacho after a 22-hour procedure. After more than three months of preparation, the girls, who were joined at the lower back, are recovering from their operation in the ICU. Conjoined twins occur in approximately one in 200,000 births, but twins joined at the hip - called pygopagus - are extremely rare. Doctors had to separate the girls' gastrointestinal tracts, bladders, reproductive areas and lower portion of the spinal cord, with a 23 percent chance of death.

Daily mail