One-year-old twin girls who were born with their backs together for the first time have been able to see each other for the first time in Israel.
The 12-hour operation at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba town last week took several months of preparation, including head transplants for both.
Several experts from Israel and abroad were involved.
The unnamed girls are said to be recovering. "They are breathing and eating alone," Eldad Silberstein, head of the surgical department at Soroka's medical center, told the Israeli Channel 12 channel.
It is the first time such an operation, performed only 20 times in the world, has been carried out in Israel.
Months before surgery, silicone bags were inserted into their heads and periodically extended to stretch the skin. The new skin was used to cover their heads after the skulls were rebuilt.
Preparations also include the creation of a real model of twins through 3D technology, said Mickey Gideon, Soroka's chief surgeon. "To our delight, everything went as we had hoped," she added. The girls, who were born in August 2020, are expected to live a normal life.
