Mar 26, 2006 11:54 am US/Central
Fargo Twins Face Risky Separation Surgery
Fargo, N.D. (AP) ―
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Abby and Belle Carlsen
CBS
A pediatric surgeon says separating conjoined Fargo, N.D. twins Abby and Belle Carlsen will be complex and risky, but without it the girls face a questionable future.
"Apart, they have every possibility of normal lives," said Dr. Christopher Moir, a surgeon at Mayo Eugenio Litta Children's Hospital in Rochester, Minn., where the Carlsen twins are hospitalized.
Parents Jesse and Amy Carlsen say they never considered leaving their girls joined. The twins are connected at the abdomen, which statistically offers one of the higher success rates for separation.
The girls recently had silicone pouches placed under the skin to stretch it in preparation for separation surgery, which likely will happen in May.
Separation surgeries were rare until the mid-1900s. Since then there have been about 250 separations in which one or both twins survived, according to the American Pediatric Surgical Association.
Dr. Steven Fishman, a pediatric surgeon at Children's Hospital Boston, has overseen two separations of conjoined twins. In both cases, leaving the twins joined would have led to the death of both siblings, he said.
Today, one family has two "completely normal" boys, Fishman said. The other family has one healthy girl. Without separation surgery both girls would have died, he said.
"The best we could hope for was a single survivor," Fishman said. "That's what we got."
Unless conjoined twins face serious complications with surgery, there are few solid arguments against separation, he said.
Alice Dreger, a professor of medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago, challenges the assumption that conjoined twins must be separated to live happy lives.
"Most of us grow into the bodies into which we were born," Dreger said. "Most of us can't imagine living any other way. It's the same for conjoined twins."
She supports separation of young twins if the surgery is simple enough that it does not result in the death or long-term disability of one of them.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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