Conjoined Twins Undergo Successful Separation Surgery At Stanford Hospital

PALO ALTO, CA – A pair of toddler twin girls who were once conjoined underwent a successful separation surgery at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford earlier this week, hospital officials said today.

Erika and Eva Sandoval, both 2 years old, shared most of their lower body before they went into surgery for 17 hours from Tuesday to early Wednesday morning, according to hospital officials.

The girls from Antelope, an unincorporated community in Sacramento County, are in stable condition at the pediatric intensive care unit and are expected to recover in about two weeks, hospital officials said.

"They did very well," said Dr. Gary Hartman, who performed the surgery.

"I'm very pleased with the outcome," Hartman said.

The girls had their own hearts, lung and stomachs, but shared a liver, bladder and diaphragm muscle prior to the procedure, hospital officials said. They also shared three legs.

"To help complete Erika’s reconstruction, the bones from the girls’ third leg were removed, and skin and muscle from the leg were used to close Erika’s abdominal wall," the hospital said. "The surgeons had considered keeping the leg with Erika if it was not needed for reconstruction, but it would likely not have been useful for walking because of its abnormal anatomy."

"Before separation, you could think of their anatomy as two people above the rib cage, merging almost into one below the bellybutton," said Dr. Peter Lorenz, who was in charge of the reconstructive stage of the surgery.

The girls were born in 2014 by cesarean section at the hospital, where they remained for about six months. They were seen by multiple doctors before they grew large enough for the separation procedure, hospital
officials said.

“It’s amazing how strong these girls are and it’s amazing what their team performed,” said Aida Sandoval, the twins’ mother. “Seeing them now in the ICU, you look at them and think ‘You’re missing your other half’ but we know that this is the right path for them: to be independent, have the chance to succeed and explore on their own everything the world has to offer.”

The last separation operation on twins at the hospital was in 2011.

Conjoined twins are a rare occurrence that happens as infrequently as once in every 200,000 births, according to hospital officials.

A YouCaring online fundraiser is underway for the girls and their family, entitled Born As One Soon to be Two! To date, $25,115 has been raised, exceeding its initial $20,000 goal.

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--Bay City News contributed to this report/Image courtesy of Courtesy of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford