Egyptian doctors have successfully operated on a two-headed baby, removing the second head and neck to leave a normal baby girl after the successful operation, surgeons said on Saturday.
“The operation lasted 15 hours and it was a complete success,” said hospital director Nazif Hefnawi, in the delta governorate of Banha.
The 11-month-old baby girl, named Manar, had been joined at the cranium to a poorly formed baby that consisted of a head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth and neck, but no body.
Doctors decided on surgery after determining that it could not be viable, as it consisted only of upper extremities and was dependent upon the normal baby.
The operation was led by Mohammed Lutfi, a Cairo university neurosurgeon, and involved 14 other doctors. It began on Friday and continued through the night into the early hours of Saturday, doctors said.
Hefnawi said Manar was in stable condition and that her temperature and pulse were normal. He added that she was also responding well to medication and had been placed in intensive care where she would stay for four days.
The baby’s mother had given birth to twins — a normal baby and Manar, who had the two heads.
Lutfi said there have been 150 such cases recorded since 1800 and doctors said Manar’s mother had used fertility drugs. — AFP