The medical team taking care of Anastasia and Tatiano Dogaru, three year old twins who were born in Italy and are conjoined at the head, have decided that surgery to separate them would not be in their best interest.
Anastasia and Tatiana are being cared for at Case Medical Center Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland Ohio, where they have been since April this year. The decision was announced by Dr Nathan Levitan, chief medical officer of the University Hospitals Case Medical Center.
The doctors said the decision not to separate the twins was very difficult, perhaps more so now that the team has become emotionally attached to the girls and their family. They said the safety of the girls was uppermost in their minds when they made the decision, following hours of discussion and medical analysis. The medical team said that on balance, the risks outweighed the benefits.
The twins are craniopagus, they are joined at the the head. The chances of this happening is about one in 2.5 million births. The top of Tatiana’s head is joined to the back of Anastasia’s: they cannot see each other’s faces. The girls share some brain tissue and circulatory system, and Anastasia relies on Tatiana’s kidneys.
Anastasia is the larger twin, at the front, and Tatiana is smaller, at the back. The twins can walk and talk, but they have many complicated medical problems which increases the risk of things going wrong during and after separation surgery, including brain damage and death, to either or both girls.
When they were born, six weeks premature in a hospital near Rome in Italy, their parents Claudia and Alin Dogaru were told their babies would not survive. Claudia and Alin had chosen not to have an abortion when sonograms showed the twins were conjoined.
Most conjoined twins die at birth, and only about 10 per cent live to the age of 10.
The Dogarus, who are originally from Romania, moved to Italy after Alin, who is a Byzantine Catholic priest, was transferred from Romania. Tatiana and Anastasia have an older sister, Maria, who is six.
A chance viewing of a television news item reporting the successful separation of conjoined twins from Egypt, Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim at Medical City Children’s Hospital in Dallas, Texas, USA, gave Claudia and Alin hope. Friends and other family members helped them contact various people who could help, including the Dallas medical team and the World Craniofacial Foundation (WCF), the organization that supported the relocation of the Egyptian twins to the United States and their stay in hospital.
In a video statement to the press on Monday, the girls’ parents said they were grateful for the care they had received at the hospital. Alin said they appreciated that the hospital had considered the risk that surgery posed to the girls, and wanted to thank the medical team for “stopping at the right time”.
University Hospitals said they would be doing everything they can to “support the family as they make plans for the future”.
Click here for University Hospitals.
Click here for the World Craniofacial Foundation.
Written by: Catharine Paddock