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| Sunday, 8 February 2004 |
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Doctors remove second head from Dominican baby SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, (Reuters) An international team of doctors in the Dominican Republic on Friday successfully removed an undeveloped second head from a baby girl born with one of the world's rarest birth defects. "The parasitic (second) head has been removed," Dominican surgeon Dr Santiago Hazim told reporters after the team of 18 doctors worked for more than 13 hours on Rebeca Martinez. "The operation has been a real success," Hazim said. "All the baby's vital signs remained stable during the operation. The operation went as planned." The surgery at the CURE International Center for Orthopedic Specialties in Santo Domingo began in the morning and went on until late in the evening, with a team of surgeons and nurses taking shifts. Martinez was born in mid-December at a hospital in the Dominican capital with the head of an undeveloped twin attached to the top of her skull, facing upward. The infant was otherwise healthy but her brain could not develop normally unless the undeveloped head was removed. The operation was led by Dr. Jorge Lazareff, director of pediatric neurosurgery at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, and Dominican surgeons Hazim and Dr. Benjamin Rivera. Lazareff led the surgical team that successfully separated Guatemalan twin girls conjoined at the head last year. By late in the evening, the surgeons were working to close the space left by the removed head. Hazim said the real success of the operation would be seen when the child began walking. But he added that if she never managed to walk it would be because of a brain defect that was present at birth. The $100,000 operation was free for the parents, Maria Gisela Hiciano and Pablo Martinez, the hospital said. On Friday evening, the parents had been told of the successful operation. The baby girl's condition, cranio pagus parasiticus, is so rare that there have only been eight documented cases in the world, and no known cases where surgery had been attempted to correct it, Hazim told Reuters in a earlier interview. Conjoined twins form when an embryo begins to split into identical twins and then stops, leaving them fused. Twins conjoined at the head account for about one of every 2.5 million births and about 2 percent of all conjoined births. Rarer "parasitic" twins occur when one conjoined twin stops developing in the womb, leaving a smaller, incomplete twin that is dependent on the other. They can form as an extra limb, torso or head, or as a complete second body, lacking vital organs. In Rebeca's case, there was a gap in her skull where the heads were joined, and the blood vessels were intertwined. The vestigial head was enlarged and fringed with dark hair like Rebeca's but had a poorly developed brain and only rudimentary facial features. Rebeca was born weighing about 7 pounds (3.2 kg) and now weighs more than 10 pounds (4.5 kg), but the undeveloped head was drawing away nutrients and exerting pressure on Rebeca's brain |
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