The dream of 29-year-old twin Iranian sisters joined at the head to lead separate lives took a tragic turn when both of them died.
Ladan Bijani died shortly after the operation due to post-surgery medical complications, while her sister Lelah died after a few hours after being in a critical condition.
Doctors at the Raffles Hospital in Singapore expressed regret.
It was always understood that the operation would be a dangerous one, but after years of being forced to seek each other's consent on every little issue, Ladan and Laleh had decided that the risk was worth it.
"Everyone upstairs is crying," MSNBC quoted an unnamed nurse as saying. "We treated them like family because they had been here for seven months."
Surgeons began a marathon operation to separate the twins on Sunday afternoon -- warning that the operation could kill one or both.
It was the first time surgeons had attempted to separate adult craniopagus twins -- siblings born joined at the head -- since the operation was first performed on infants in 1952.
Hospital spokesman Dr Prem Kumar was quoted by MSNBC as saying, "As the separation was coming to a close, a lot of blood was lost. The twins were subsequently in a critical state."
The team of doctors had to contend with unstable pressure levels inside the twins' brains just before they worked to uncouple the sisters' brains and cut through the last bit of skull joining them, Kumar said.
On Monday, the team of doctors completed one of the most dangerous steps in the surgery by rerouting a shared vein and stitched in a new one. The shared vein, thick as a finger, drained blood from the twins' brains to their hearts.
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