Two Egyptian baby boys attached at the tops of their heads are due to travel to the United States this month so that a team of Dallas doctors can evaluate the chances of separating them.
Mohammed and Ahmed Ibrahim, 10 months old, share a part of their brain. They were born early June to the wife of a laborer in the southern Egyptian town of Qus, near Luxor.
Dr. Nasser Abdel Al, head of the neonatal surgical intensive care unit at Cairo's Abu el-Reesh Hospital, put out an international call for help in treating the twins early this year, and a team headed by Dr. Kenneth Salyer responded.
"Nobody has tackled a situation exactly like this," said Dr. David Genecov, a craniofacial surgeon who will lead the medical team with Salyer. "If we can do it and help them then it'll be wonderful."
The World Craniofacial Foundation, a nonprofit foundation founded by Salyer and based in Dallas, is paying for the Egyptian twins' trip and organizing the doctors volunteering to work with them, foundation director Sue Blackwood said, according to AP.
Genecov added that the boys' parents have signed a release allowing their doctors to bring them to Dallas and be responsible for their treatment.
Although though the twins could live as they are, Genecov said, their quality of life clearly would be highly impaired.
However, if doctors determine that the risk of separating the boys is so high that both may die, they will skip the surgery and return them to Egypt.
"This is a very rare birth defect," Genecov said. "Sometimes even though we want to do something really, really badly, it can't be done safely." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
