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Thursday, May 08, 2003
Twins doing well after separation
By Linette C. Ramos
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
FOUR months after the successful operation that separated them, conjoined twins Mark Virgil and Joseph Virgil Dagoro are almost ready to live normal lives.
A 20-member team of doctors and specialists from Cebu Doctors’ Hospital (CDH) operated on the twins last New Year’s Day, the first successful “operative separation” in Cebu.
The twins, who were joined at the abdomen, were admitted as full charity cases at CDH just 18 hours after they were born to public school teachers Virgilio and Gwina Dagoro in Ormoc City last Dec. 29,
The twins shared urinary bladder, colon and large intestines. They also had problems with their external genitalia.
Two teams
Pediatric surgeon Rene Rafols said the operation went smoothly, owing partly to the number of health workers who helped.
Since there were two babies that doctors needed to separately work on, two teams were formed. Each team consisted of pediatric surgeons, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, urologists, resident doctors, interns and nurses.
The separation alone took three hours and another three hours was spent on bladder reconstruction, division of rectovesical fistula and end colostomy.
“It was a smooth operation, which is the first successful operation of its kind in Cebu, but we really had to mobilize a lot of people and we had to wait for a schedule when we can have the whole operating complex to ourselves,” Rafols told Sun.Star.
Separating the twins, though, was only half of the job.
Rafols said there are other operations that still have to be performed on both babies to ensure that they do not suffer complications later on.
Doctors will still have to construct a new anus for both babies.
Antibiotics
Their genitalia will also have to be reconstructed since the external genitalia of both babies are deformed.
Mark developed sepsis and Joseph suffered from urinary tract infection 10 days after the operation. They were given antibiotics and were already in stable condition when they were discharged a month after their admission.
“Daghan pa kaayo sila og problema. We have to make a new anus for them, repair the genitalia and monitor the urinary bladder. We already made a bladder for each of them, but we have to check, otherwise, we they might have problems with their kidneys later,” said Rafols.
The bladders may still be dysfunctional at this time, but they will eventually grow and function normally, he added.
The procedure was very costly for CDH considering the specialists involved and the medicines that the babies needed to take before, during and after the operation.
CDH medical director Potenciano Larrazabal Jr. said the Dagoro twins were admitted as a charity case.
“Both babies are doing fine. They are in Ormoc City now but are expected to be back here for further tests and another operation,” Larrazabal told Sun.Star.
In January 1999, doctors of a hospital in Cebu City also separated conjoined twins Mary Joy and Mary Grace Pacle. One of them died during the operation while the other died 13 hours later.
The Dagoro twins’ condition is said to be a rare type, with only one case for every 60,000 babies born.
(May 8, 2003 issue)
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