SINGAPORE: An unprecedented operation to separate adult twins joined at the head entered a critical phase when doctors in Singapore yesterday attempted to split a major blood vessel which serves the sisters' brains.
Dozens of doctors and scores of support staff are helping in the operation to separate Iranian twin sisters Laleh and Ladan Bijani (29) in surgery expected to last at least two days, possibly three.
Surgery began yesterday when doctors harvested a vein from Ladan's right thigh.
The law-graduate twins who are willing to risk death to lead separate lives share a major blood vessel between their two brains.
Surgeons need the leg vein to create a new blood vessel for one of the sisters before their skulls can be separated.
That part of the operation is expected to last for 12 hours.
"It is probably one of the most critical aspects of the surgery. As we have said before, the key component in Laleh and Ladan's surgery is the shared blood vessel," said Dr Prem Kumar Nair, a spokesman for Raffles Hospital.
Singapore doctors performed a similar operation in 2001 on infant girls from Nepal, but experts say an operation on adult twins is unprecedented.
The sisters laughed and joked with friends as they were wheeled into an operating theatre early yesterday, ending years of convincing doctors of their wish to lead separate lives.
German doctors had turned away the Bijanis in 1996, deeming that splitting them could prove fatal, but the women have not been deterred.