The Multidisciplinary Surgical and Medical Team announced that the separation procedure of the conjoined twins Chris and Christian which took place on Thursday, April 10th, 2014, in King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard – Riyadh was successful. The Head of the multidisciplinary team Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabiah stated that the procedure was completed in less time than expected, less than 6 hours instead of 7 hours.
The multidisciplinary team consisted of (48) participants from different medical specialties covering Anesthesiology, Pediatric surgery, Plastic Surgery and nursing as well as the participation of four students as observers(College of Nursing and College of Medicine) in order to gain experience in such complex and specialized surgeries.
Phase one of the procedure covered anesthesia and lasted nearly two hours followed by the prepping stage for 30 minutes then the separating procedure was carried out. After that, the fourth stage began by separating the liver which was one of the most difficult and complex stages that lasted 2 hours followed by the fifth stage which covered the reconstruction of the organs where the twins were put on two separate beds for the first time since birth, this phase lasted for almost an hour. Finally, the closing phase included covering and transferring the twins to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where they will be monitored for several days through recovery.
Separating Conjoined twins is one of the most complex surgical procedures that can be carried out only in a few centers around the world, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia excelled in this type of surgical procedures due to Multidisciplinary Surgical and Medical Team gained experience since the first case in 1990 followed by 2 procedures which were conducted in King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh. After that, Conjoined twins surgical procedures are now performed in King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard where 31 procedures were performed for conjoined twins from 15 different countries.