Girl with 8 limbs to undergo surgery UPDATE Surgery is a success

[MedicCook]

Girl with 8 limbs to undergo surgery
Doctors hope operation will leave 2-year-old with a normal body


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BANGALORE, India - Doctors began operating Tuesday on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave the girl with a normal body, a hospital official said.

The girl named Lakshmi is joined to a “parasitic twin” that stopped developing in the mother’s womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus.

A team of 30 doctors was removing the extra limbs and organs. They have separated the fused spines and the next step will be to separate the extra limbs and then the rest of the “parasite,” said Dr. Sharan Patil, the orthopedic surgeon leading the operation.

“As of now, the child has been responding very well,” Patil said several hours into the operation.

Lakshmi is named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, and some in her village in the northern state of Bihar revere her.

“Everybody considers her a goddess at our village,” said her father, Shambhu, who goes by one name. “All this expenditure has happened to make her normal. So far, everything is fine.”

Others sought to make money from Lakshmi. Her parents kept her in hiding after a circus apparently tried to buy the girl, they said.

Lengthy operation
The complications for Lakshmi’s surgery are myriad: The two spines are merged, she has four kidneys, entangled nerves, two stomach cavities and two chest cavities. She cannot stand up or walk.

“It’s a big team effort of a lot of skilled surgeons who will be putting their heart and soul into solving the problem of Lakshmi,” Patil said earlier in the day. “It’s going to take many, many hours on a continuous basis to operate on the baby. So, these issues definitely make it complex.”

Patil put the risk of losing Lakshmi between 20 and 25 percent.

Doctors at Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, where the girl is undergoing surgery, said she is popular among the staff and patients.

“She’s a very cute girl,” Dr. Patil Mamatha said. “She’s very playful and gets along well with others.”

The hospital’s foundation is paying for the operation because the girl’s family could not afford the medical bills, Mamatha said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21652326/

[trojanmiro]

thats freaky.

[MedicCook]

She the Octopus child.

[sws4420]

It's Vishnu!

[MedicCook]

Surgery for girl with eight limbs is going smoothly doctors say

BANGALORE, India (CNN ) -- Partway through a mammoth 40-hour operation on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs, surgeons in India said the procedure is going according to plan, with no problems encountered.

"The surgery is going on very well so far," head surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil told CNN. The surgery to separate Lakshmi Tatma from her "parasitic twin" continues, he said, with a team of some 30 surgeons.

"We've managed to remove the parasitic twin out of Lakshmi's body and started reconstructing her pelvic bone. We have managed to get the pelvic bone together."

The little girl, he said, has "responded very well. ... Everything is going according to plan."

The task began early Tuesday in the southern Indian city of Bangalore and is expected to go on through the night, with surgeons working eight-hour shifts.

The conjoined twin stopped developing in the mother's womb, and has a torso and limbs, but no head. It was joined to Lakshmi at the pelvis.

When Lakshmi was born into a poor, rural Indian family, villagers in the remote settlement of Rampur Kodar Katti in the northern state of Bihar believed she was sacred. As news of her birth spread, locals waited in line for a blessing from the baby.

Her parents, Shambhu and Poonam Tatma, named the girl after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms. However, they were forced to keep her in hiding after they were approached by men offering money in exchange for putting their daughter in a circus.

The couple, who earn just $1 a day as casual laborers, wanted her to have the operation but were unable to pay for the rare procedure, which has never before been performed in India.

After Patil visited the girl in her village from Narayana Health City hospital in Bangalore, the hospital's foundation agreed to fund the $200,000 operation.

The operation is being conducted by specialists in pediatrics, neurosurgery, orthopedics and plastic surgery. Without it, doctors say, Lakshmi would be unlikely to survive beyond early adolescence.

Planning for the surgery took a month, Patil said, and Lakshmi spent that month in the hospital.

Her parents are being given regular updates but are not allowed to see their daughter during the operation.

"We are quite optimistic," Patil told CNN. "We do expect that she should be able to walk normally and lead a normal life."

Many villagers, however, remain opposed to surgery and are planning to erect a temple to Lakshmi, who they still revere as sacred.

Patil said Lakshmi's parents are "very practical" and knew the risks of the medical treatment. Asked about the belief she is a reincarnation of the goddess, he said, "She's a very charming young girl, and I'm sure she'll grow up and be something special."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/11/06/india.girl/index.html

[Mikey]

holy sweet jesus. They must have something in their water, lol.

[MedicCook]

I wonder how close she lives to those Nuke plants?

[Donna]

I wonder how close she lives to those Nuke plants?

:rotflmao: OMG, it's a twin attached to her with no head..........talk about a friggin freak of nature! YUK!!

[MedicCook]

8-limbed girl's surgery a spectacular success
2-year-old Indian girl stable after being separated from her 'parasitic twin'

BANGALORE, India - A grueling, 24-hour-long operation to remove the extra limbs of an Indian girl born with four arms and four legs was a spectacular success, leaving her in stable cosndition, doctors announced Wednesday.

A team of more than 30 physicians successfully removed the 2-year-old's extra limbs, salvaged her organs, and rebuilt her pelvis area, Dr. Sharan Patil said from a hospital in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

"Beyond our expectations, the reconstruction worked wonderfully well," said Patil, the lead orthopedic surgeon during the operation.

The girl, named Lakshmi, is revered by some in her village as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess.

Lakshmi was born joined to a "parasitic twin" that stopped developing in her mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus.

The complications for Lakshmi's surgery were myriad: She was born with four kidneys, entangled nerves, two stomach cavities and two chest cavities. She cannot stand up or walk.

The surgery also included separating the fused spines, Patil said. "Every step was successful. There was no setback whatsoever."

Patil said Lakshmi's family was "overwhelmed," and they expected to see her Wednesday afternoon. She will stay in the hospital for observation for several days.

Doctors anticipated an especially difficult challenge would be rebuilding Lakshmi's pelvis, but that went smoothly also. "We were able to bring the pelvic bones together successfully, which takes away the need for another procedure," Patil said.

Viewed as a reincarnated god
Children born with deformities in deeply traditional rural parts of India, like the remote village in the northern state of Bihar that Lakshmi hails from, are often viewed as reincarnated gods. The young girl is no different — she is named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth.

"Everybody considers her a goddess at our village," said her father, Shambhu, who goes by one name. "All this expenditure has happened to make her normal. So far, everything is fine."

Others sought to make money from Lakshmi. Her parents kept her in hiding after a circus apparently tried to buy the girl, they said.

Doctors at Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore said she is popular among the staff and patients. The hospital's foundation paid for the operation because the girl's family could not afford the medical bills.

"She's a very cute girl," hospital spokeswoman Dr. Patil Mamatha said. "She's very playful and gets along well with others."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21652326/?GT1=10547