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One of the conjoined twins - Source: ONE News -
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Conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna have spent their first night
in their own beds after groundbreaking surgery at Melbourne's Royal
Children's Hospital to separate them.
The girls, almost three years of age, who were joined at the head,
endured more than 31 hours of surgery but now face a battle for
survival as they recover in the hospital's intensive care
unit.
A team of Australian surgeons performed a series of complex
procedures on the tiny sisters, working through Monday and into
Tuesday afternoon, while the nation waited for news.
The delicate task of separating their heads was completed at 11am
local time on Tuesday.
Then, cranio-facial surgeons stepped in to reconstruct the girls'
skulls using a combination of their own skin, bone grafts and
artificial materials.
More than 31 hours after their procedure started, the sisters, aged
two years and 11 months, were out of the operating theatre by about
4pm on Tuesday and taken to intensive care.
Royal Children's Hospital chief of surgery Leo Donnan said Krishna
and Trishna were recovering well.
But they face many risks, including infection, following the
marathon operation.
Donnan said it may not be known for a long time whether they
sustained brain damage, so now was not the time for
celebration.
"Doing operations like this ... you are guarded. Everyone will be
very pensive at the moment," he said.
"It was a relief, but everyone realised there is still a long way
to go and that the girls have a very difficult time ahead of
them."
The twins were given a 25% chance of coming through the operation
unharmed, with a 50% chance they would be brain damaged and a 25%
chance one of them would die.
"There is no one moment of great celebration. There's relief and
it's nice to know that we're onto the next stage," Donnan told
reporters.
"We've got a lot of unanswered, unknown territory we are moving
into but all I can say is that everything is in place for the best
possible outcome.
"Every step is an improvement."
