Conjoined twins separated in 27-hour surgery with help of virtual reality
- An international surgical team successfully separated twin boys who were joined at the head
- In all, twins Bernardo and Arthur Lima underwent nine operations, the last of which spanned 27 hours
Conjoined twins born in Brazil with a fused head and brain have been separated in what doctors described as the most complex surgery of its kind, which they prepared for using virtual reality.
Arthur and Bernardo Lima were born in 2018 in the state of Roraima in northern Brazil as craniopagus twins, an extremely rare condition in which the siblings are fused at the cranium.
Joined at the top of the head for nearly four years – most of that spent in a Rio de Janeiro hospital outfitted with a custom bed – the brothers are now able to look each other in the face for the first time, after a series of nine operations culminating in a marathon 27-hour surgery to separate them.
London-based medical charity Gemini Untwined, which helped carry out the procedure, described it as the “most challenging and complex separation to date”, given that the boys shared several vital veins.
“The twins had the most serious and difficult version of the condition, with the highest risk of death for both,” said neurosurgeon Gabriel Mufarrej of the Paulo Niemeyer State Brain Institute (IECPN) in Rio, where the procedure was performed.
“We’re very satisfied with the outcome, because no one else believed in this surgery at first, but we always believed there was a chance,” he said in a statement.