Surgeons separate conjoined twins

　　SURGEONS separated 1-year-old Guatemalan twins joined at the head, a risky procedure that took about 20 hours to complete in Los Angles, a doctor said yesterday.Dr. Houman Hemmati, who assisted in the surgery, said the separation appeared to be successful.Hospital officials said doctors were still in surgery but Hemmati said the separation was complete.“There was absolutely no major trouble that was unforeseen in this procedure,” he said.One of the girls was losing a lot of blood during the operation but she was given transfusions and “everything looks great,” he said.The surgery on Maria Teresa and Maria de Jesus Quiej-Alvarez began Monday afternoon, about six hours after they were wheeled into the operating room at Mattel Children’s Hospital at the University of California at Los Angeles.The girls, born in rural Guatemala, were attached at the top of the skull and face opposite directions. Cases like theirs occur in fewer than one in 1 million live births.The riskiest part of the surgery was expected to be separating the veins that connect the girl’s heads.Healing the Children, a nonprofit group, arranged to bring the sisters from Guatemala to Los Angeles for the US$1.5 million operation.(SD-Agencies)