Current Paediatrics
Volume 11, Issue 5 , Pages 386-389, October 2001

Conjoined twins

  • L. Spitz (Nuffield Professor of Paediatric Surgery)

      Affiliations

Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London

Abstract 

Conjoined twins occur 1 in 200 000 live births with females predominating 3:1. The twins are classified according to their most prominent site of union together with the suffix ‘pagus’. The diagnosis can be suspected on prenatal scan as early as 12 weeks gestation. A recent advance is the use of 3-D MRI imaging to provide accurate anatomical details prenatally.Management can be divided into four phases:

•prenatal counselling with termination recommended in cases with cardiac fusion;

•non-operative treatment in the presence of complex cardiac or neural fusion;

•emergency separation when one twin is dead or threatening the survival of the other or when there is a life-threatening surgically correctable congenital abnormality present;

•planned separation usually around 3 months if the infants condition is stable.

Keywords: conjoined, twins, siamese

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  • f1 Correspondence to: LS.

PII: S0957-5839(01)90216-7

doi:10.1054/cupe.2001.0216

Current Paediatrics
Volume 11, Issue 5 , Pages 386-389, October 2001

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