Kashmir Digits

Kashmir Surgeon Separates Brazilian Twins With Fused Brains.

Kashmir super surgeon, Dr Noor ul Owase Jeelani, known for carrying out complicated surgeries of conjoined twins, is again in news globally for separating conjoined twins whose brains were fused, the most complicated such surgery undertaken so far. 

This operation took place in Brazil, reports appearing in the global media said.

The 33-hour-long operation involved a series of seven procedures and it eventually separated three-year-old twins, Bernardo and Arthur Lima in Rio de Janeiro. Dr Noor ul Owase Jeelani from London’s GOSH headed the large team of 100 surgeons, engineers and other staffers in the complicated operation.

Dr Jeelani was assisted by Dr Gabriel Mufarrej, who heads paediatric surgery at Instituto Estadual do Cerebro Paulo Niemeyer. It was this hospital that was taking care of the twins for last more than 30 months.

“The successful separation of Bernardo and Arthur is a remarkable achievement by the team in Rio and a fantastic example of why the work of Gemini Untwined is so valuable,” Dr Jeelani said after the operation was over. “Not only have we provided a new future for the boys and their family, we have equipped the local team with the capabilities and confidence to undertake such complex work successfully again in the future.”

READ ALSO: Kashmiri Neurosurgeon Helps Save Israeli Conjoined Twins

Though the GOSH’s team led by Jeelani believes that any surgical intervention involving brains should ideally be done in the first year after birth, the Brazil twins were the first to undergo the surgery at such an old age, almost four years after their birth.

Kashmir Surgeon Separates Brazilian Twins With Fused Brains. ‘Space Age Stuff’

Surgeons in London and Rio spent months trialling techniques using virtual reality projections of the twins based on CT and MRI scans, a system that Jeelani terms “space-age stuff”. He said that, for the first time in the world, surgeons in separate countries wore headsets and operated in the same “virtual reality room” together.

“It’s just wonderful, it’s really great to see the anatomy and do the surgery before you actually put the children at any risk,” Jelani said. “You can imagine how reassuring that is for the surgeons…In some ways, these operations are considered the hardest of our time, and to do it in virtual reality was just really man-on-Mars stuff.”

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The operation was hugely tiring. The last procedure that eventually separated the twins was carried out for 17 hours. Dr Jeeleni said that he took only four breaks for 15 minutes each for water and food. “But it was wonderful to see the family feeling over the moon once we concluded the operation,” he said.

“At nearly four years old and with fused brains, this was our most complex case to date and marks the beginning of a long-term partnership with the hospital,” Gemini Untiwned, the charity started by Dr Jeelani that funds these capital-intensive procedures said in a statement. “This ensures that similar cases in Latin America receive the same level of world-class care in the future.”

This is the sixth set of twins with fused skulls that were separated by Dr Jeelani’s GOSH team in last less than a decade. These included a set of twins from Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Isreal and now Brazil. Unlike earlier cases, the Rio twins had fused brains within the fused skulls, making it the most challenging surgery ever touched by Dr Jeelani and his team.

Earlier Dr Jeelani made headlines when he helped a group of Israeli doctors to successfully save a pair of twins conjoined at the head.

“He said that the fact that a Kashmir-born Muslim doctor scrubbed up alongside an Israeli team to help a Jewish family was a reminder of the universal nature of medicine,” the report quoted him as saying.