Hanoi Doctors Separate Twins

The two girls, who shared no internal organs other than breastbone and pericardium, are improving after the operation, said Dr. Nguyen Thanh Liem, the hospital’s director. They will remain under close observation due to their congenital heart defects, Dr. Liem said. The twins, who weighed 4.7 kilograms, were born on Wednesday in the nearby province of Bac Ninh. According to a pre-operative examination, one of the girls has an arterial malformation, while the other has a problem with her pericardium – a membrane that surrounds the heart and is the root of the great blood vessels. The operation had been scheduled for Tuesday but the twins’ deteriorating condition had forced the doctors to move the surgery forward lest the girls died, Dr. Liem said.