Siamese twins: Australian surgeons try to separate Bhutanese girls

Australian surgeons have launched a complex operation to separate Siamese twins from Bhutan.

The 15-month-old girls, Nima and Dawa Pelden, are joined to the torso and share a liver and possibly a gut, the doctors said.

They were brought to Melbourne with their mother for surgery in October, but this operation was postponed so that girls could improve their nutrition.

The doctors said that they were confident that the twins were now ready for the operation.

About 18 specialists from two teams, one for each girl, participate in the procedure at the Royal Children's Hospital of Melbourne. The surgery should last at least six hours.

Siamese twins are very rare – it is thought that one in 200,000 births – and about 40 to 60% of these births are stillbirths.

Only a few separations are made in the world each year.

• Live a joint life
• The joy of twins so close to birth reporting on TV

Nima and Dawa face each other and can not sit together. They can stand together at the same time.

"What we are going to look for is just what elements actually unite the two girls," said Friday the chief surgeon, Dr. Joe Crameri.

Dr. Crameri said that they would separate the liver, but one of the "unknowns" was whether the girls shared the intestine.

If that were the case, he would also be divided, he said, and "our challenge will be to rebuild their abdominal walls to close it".

The girls and their mother, Bhumchu Zangmo, 38, were brought from Bhutan to Australia by Children First Foundation, an Australian-based charity.

Elizabeth Lodge, of the charity, said that Ms. Zangmo was "a little afraid" about the procedure, but had shown up to now "extraordinary calm".

Ms. Zangmo would spend the day praying and meditating, she added.

The state of Victoria has offered to cover the costs of the operation, amounting to 350 000 Australian dollars (195 000 pounds sterling).

The procedure should allow the family to return to the Himalayan kingdom, one of the poorest countries in the world.

In 2009, the same hospital carried out an operation to separate the twins from Bangladesh.

The girls, Trishna and Krishna, who were joined at the head, underwent a 32-hour rescue operation.