Rital and Ritag, Sudanese Head-Conjoined Twin Girls

The sisters, Rital and Ritag, were born with the tops of their skulls fused together in Khartoum, Sudan in October 2010. Conjoined twins are extremely rare, occurring in only one in every 100,000 live births. They are more common in South-west Asia and Africa, and are three times more likely to be girls. Only between 3 and 5 per cent of cases involve a fused skull, known as craniopagus twins, and of those most are stillborn or survive less than 24 hours.

Rital and Ritag shared blood vessels, and there was significant blood flow between their brains. Ritag supplied half her sister's brain with blood, and drained most of it back to her own body to re-oxygenate – which meant her tiny heart was doing most of the work for both of them.

Twin Sisters had four complex operations at London’s Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. The first two operations on 9 May 2011 and 16 May 2011 separated the blood flow. When the twins had fully recovered from the first operation, inflatable balloons were inserted under the scalp on 4 July 2011. These were gradually inflated to stretch the scalp to grow more skin. This extra skin would be used in the final operation to ensure there was enough to cover both heads. The twins were finally separated successfully in a 13-hour operation on 15 August 2011.

Source(s) : bbc.co.uk, independent.co.uk