3D printing helps separate conjoined twins in China

Pic shows:  The twin girls are joined at the hip and share genitals and a tailbone, rather than the stomach and the chest. They are ready for surgery. Surgeons will separate rare three month-old conjoined twins in China tomorrow. (Tuesday) Unusually, the twin girls are joined at the hip and share genitals and a tailbone, rather than the stomach and the chest. The cost of the 21,168 GBP operation, which could last up to 12 hours, is being funded by a charity.  The operation will take place at the Children's Hospital of Fudan University tomorrow in the city of Shanghai in Eastern China. The twins were born by caesarean on March 17 at a county hospital in Ganzhou City, but doctors only realised they were deformed during delivery as it had not been picked up in prenatal checks. The girls will need delicate re-constructive surgery as they share one anus and genitalia.  Surgeons say they will use a 10-centimetre anal tube to separate their digestive systems. The hi-tec hospital is using  the latest 3D printing technology to rebuild the twins' conjoined parts which will simulate the entire operation. The twins now weigh 9.55 kilograms, are strong enough for the operation and the hospital has allowed the parents to stay with them for their psychological development. The parents have not been named but they have been married for eight years and these are their first children. Conjoined twins are a rare congenital deformity with an incidence of just one in every  200,000 born in the world. In this case the hip connection is very rare and only covers 18 percent of all the cases. (ends)
Pic shows: The twin girls are joined at the hip and share genitals and a tailbone, rather than the stomach and the chest. They are ready for surgery.
Surgeons will separate rare three month-old conjoined twins in China tomorrow. (Tuesday)
Unusually, the twin girls are joined at the hip and share genitals and a tailbone, rather than the stomach and the chest.
The cost of the 21,168 GBP operation, which could last up to 12 hours, is being funded by a charity.
The operation will take place at the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University tomorrow in the city of Shanghai in Eastern China.
The twins were born by caesarean on March 17 at a county hospital in Ganzhou City, but doctors only realised they were deformed during delivery as it had not been picked up in prenatal checks.
The girls will need delicate re-constructive surgery as they share one anus and genitalia.
Surgeons say they will use a 10-centimetre anal tube to separate their digestive systems.
The hi-tec hospital is using the latest 3D printing technology to rebuild the twins’ conjoined parts which will simulate the entire operation.
The twins now weigh 9.55 kilograms, are strong enough for the operation and the hospital has allowed the parents to stay with them for their psychological development.
The parents have not been named but they have been married for eight years and these are their first children.
Conjoined twins are a rare congenital deformity with an incidence of just one in every 200,000 born in the world. In this case the hip connection is very rare and only covers 18 percent of all the cases.
(ends)

With the help of 3D printing technology, doctors in Shanghai on Tuesday successfully separated three-month-old twin sisters who were conjoined at the hip.

The twins, born in Ganzhou city of Jiangxi province, were connected by soft tissues at the hip and lower spine. They have mostly separate digestive systems but share one lower bowel.

After a five hour operation in the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, the twins were separated and had their anuses, perineum, and muscle surrounding the rectum reconstructed, Xinhua news agency reported.

Chief surgeon Zheng Shan said the team of doctors used 3D printing to build two models simulating the structure of the babies’ connected parts, which helped them better understand the anatomical structure and carry out simulated surgery when making plans for the procedure.

Since the year 2000, the hospital has successfully separated seven pairs of conjoined twins.

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