The operation was to be one of many needed to separate toddlers Anastasia and Tatiana Dogaru. Doctor Nathan Levitan, Chief Medical Officer at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital says after removing a section of bone to view the brain tissue they share, swelling in Anastasia's brain was revealed. Medications could not reduce the swelling. She also experienced a drop in blood pressure during the surgery. These two factors, Levitan says, forced surgeons to abandon Wednesday's operation.
Nathan Levitan: It is entirely possible and even likely, that there has been increased pressure and swelling all along in the brains of these girls and that only became apparent yesterday. And (again) the blood flow and efforts to modify that will have to be addressed.
Levitan says doctors won't say what they'll do next until they can examine MRI scans of the girls skulls. If they girls are not separated, doctors say they have a 10 percent chance of living to be teenagers. Lisa Ann Pinkerton, 90.3.