Two Headed Baby operation started today
From
Yahoo/AP comes this story:
bq. Surgeons Start Two-Headed Baby Operation
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - A team of surgeons began operating Friday on a Dominican infant born with a second head, a risky surgery that doctors say they believe to be the first of its kind.
bq. Led by a Los Angles-based neurosurgeon, the medical team planned to spend about 13 hours removing Rebeca Martinez's second head, which has a partially formed brain, ears, eyes and lips.
bq. Eighteen surgeons, nurses and doctors were to take several rotations to cut off the undeveloped tissue, clip the veins and arteries and close the skull of the 7-week-old girl using a bone graft from another part of her body.
bq. "The head on top is growing faster than the lower one," said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the University of California at Los Angeles' Mattel Children's Hospital. "If we don't operate, the child would barely be able to lift her head at 3 months old."
The Yahoo site has a slide show with closeups of the baby - nature can be strange at times... Best of luck little Rebeca!
Posted by DaveH at February 6, 2004 12:40 PM