Arab News 
  
Riyadh, Feb 27:  Using a unique form of surgery, the first of its kind in the Middle East, doctors at Riyadh’s King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH) saved a pregnant Saudi woman and her unborn five-month twins.

Addressing a press conference at KFSH yesterday, Dr. Qasim Al-Qasabi, chief executive director of the hospital, said yesterday that the woman’s babies were diagnosed to have Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) — a rare medical condition resulting in one of the unborn babies growing faster at the expense of the other.

Al-Qasabi said that when the mother, who is from the Eastern Province, arrived at the hospital, she was suffering extra-ordinary pain and had a bloated belly.

Elaborating on Al-Qasabi’s remarks, Dr. Saud Al-Shanafey, a pediatric surgeon, described it as a condition whereby a twin bleeds into the circulation of a recipient twin. The donor twin becomes anemic, hypovolemic and loses amniotic fluid.

Al-Shanafey said that the surgery performed last week was the first of its kind in the Middle East. “It was successful and the mother will be able to give birth to normal healthy babies,” he said. This is the woman’s second pregnancy.

Severe TTTS has a 60-100 percent fetal or neonatal mortality rate. Mild-to-moderate TTTS is frequently associated with premature delivery. Fetal demise of one twin is associated with neurologic sequelae in 25 percent of surviving twins. The more premature the twins are at birth, the higher the incidence of postnatal morbidity.