Widgetsx3
09-19-2002, 10:48 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/09/18/life.twins.reut/index.html
There are recent pics at the site.
Separated twins may return to Guatemala next month
Thursday, September 19, 2002 Posted: 7:26 AM EDT (1126 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The formerly conjoined twin sisters from Guatemala who were surgically separated in early August may return home as early as next month, Los Angeles hospital officials said on Wednesday.
"I strongly believe that by the middle to end of October they will most likely be heading back to Guatemala," said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, the neurosurgeon for the twin 14-month-old girls.
Plastic surgeons at Mattel Children's Hospital at the University of California at Los Angeles said they used a special skin substitute to make sure that the scalp wounds created by the marathon separation surgery heal properly.
There were concerns that some of the wounds could leave the brain exposed, explained reconstructive surgeon Dr. Henry Kawamoto.
The procedure, using a skin regeneration product donated by Johnson & Johnson, was carried out on Maria Teresa Quiej-Alvarez on Tuesday. UCLA said surgeons had performed the same procedure on her sister Maria de Jesus at the end of August and her scalp has now grown enough to cover her entire skull and brain.
Kawamoto said he is hopeful that Maria Teresa, whose recovery has lagged that of her sister, will show similar results before the twins' expected return to Guatemala.
"Maria de Jesus is very alert and playful. She loves to eat -- she has her bottle every time she can get it," said Clarice Marsh, the hospital's director of pediatric nursing.
"Maria Teresa is slowly improving as well."
Lazareff said the twins "are doing much better than they were doing last week and will be doing even better next week."
He said key milestones in the girls' recovery will include whether they than can accomplish tasks -- like sitting up -- that normal children achieve at a much earlier age, but that the two Marias were physically unable to do.
Both girls remain in serious condition with stable vital signs in the pediatric intensive care unit and each faces several additional surgeries in the coming years.
Doctors remain cautiously optimistic about both twins' long-term prospects for recovery.
Affectionately known as "Las Maritas" -- or "the Little Marias" -- the girls were born in rural Guatemala with the tops of their skulls fused and their faces tilted in opposite directions.
Surgeons had to separate their heads and untangle the interconnected blood vessels that drained blood from their brains back to their hearts.
The girls' parents, Leticia Alba and Wenceslao Quiej-Alvarez, a banana packer, are from Belen, a hamlet along Guatemala's southern coast.
Conjoined twins occur once in every 200,000 live births, but twins who are fused at the tops of their heads, known as craniopagus twins, make up only about 2 percent of those.
There are recent pics at the site.
Separated twins may return to Guatemala next month
Thursday, September 19, 2002 Posted: 7:26 AM EDT (1126 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The formerly conjoined twin sisters from Guatemala who were surgically separated in early August may return home as early as next month, Los Angeles hospital officials said on Wednesday.
"I strongly believe that by the middle to end of October they will most likely be heading back to Guatemala," said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, the neurosurgeon for the twin 14-month-old girls.
Plastic surgeons at Mattel Children's Hospital at the University of California at Los Angeles said they used a special skin substitute to make sure that the scalp wounds created by the marathon separation surgery heal properly.
There were concerns that some of the wounds could leave the brain exposed, explained reconstructive surgeon Dr. Henry Kawamoto.
The procedure, using a skin regeneration product donated by Johnson & Johnson, was carried out on Maria Teresa Quiej-Alvarez on Tuesday. UCLA said surgeons had performed the same procedure on her sister Maria de Jesus at the end of August and her scalp has now grown enough to cover her entire skull and brain.
Kawamoto said he is hopeful that Maria Teresa, whose recovery has lagged that of her sister, will show similar results before the twins' expected return to Guatemala.
"Maria de Jesus is very alert and playful. She loves to eat -- she has her bottle every time she can get it," said Clarice Marsh, the hospital's director of pediatric nursing.
"Maria Teresa is slowly improving as well."
Lazareff said the twins "are doing much better than they were doing last week and will be doing even better next week."
He said key milestones in the girls' recovery will include whether they than can accomplish tasks -- like sitting up -- that normal children achieve at a much earlier age, but that the two Marias were physically unable to do.
Both girls remain in serious condition with stable vital signs in the pediatric intensive care unit and each faces several additional surgeries in the coming years.
Doctors remain cautiously optimistic about both twins' long-term prospects for recovery.
Affectionately known as "Las Maritas" -- or "the Little Marias" -- the girls were born in rural Guatemala with the tops of their skulls fused and their faces tilted in opposite directions.
Surgeons had to separate their heads and untangle the interconnected blood vessels that drained blood from their brains back to their hearts.
The girls' parents, Leticia Alba and Wenceslao Quiej-Alvarez, a banana packer, are from Belen, a hamlet along Guatemala's southern coast.
Conjoined twins occur once in every 200,000 live births, but twins who are fused at the tops of their heads, known as craniopagus twins, make up only about 2 percent of those.