New York, Sept 13: A set of 17-month-old conjoined twins from the Philippines have arrived at a suburban New York rehabilitation center where they will live while awaiting surgery to be separated. The boys, Clarence and Carl Aguirre, from Manila, are joined at the top of the head and share a major vein called the Sagittal Sinus.

They are expected to undergo a series of operations at children's hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, planned for late October.

Until the surgeries, the twins will live at Blythedale Children's Hospital in Valhalla, where doctors will try to help them eat more and strengthen their muscles before the surgeries.
The surgical team will be led by Dr. James Goodrich, director of the division of pediatric neurosurgery, who said he is optimistic about the outcome of the operations because the twins have separate brains.

In a separate case involving conjoined twins, surgeons in Baltimore successfully separated 2-month-old twin girls from Nigeria who were joined at the abdomen and shared a liver.

Faithful and favour Sobowale-Davies were "doing well" after Thursday's surgery, said Dr Paul Colombani, director of pediatric surgery at Johns Hopkins children's center.
Bureau Report