Egyptian twins separated

Eighteen doctors working in shifts have been operating on Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim at Children's Medical Center of Dallas. They were separated about 27 hours after the surgery started and doctors were working to reconstruct their skulls and close their wounds, the hospital said in a statement.

After more than a day of surgery, doctors completed the most difficult and dangerous part of the procedure -- separating the shared brain material and the shared circulatory systems that feed bloods to their brains.

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Dr. Jim Thomas, the chief of critical care at the hospital, told a news conference the medical procedure was in the "home stretch." If there were no major complications, the operation should end on Sunday, he said.

He said during surgery the boys had not suffered major blood loss, had had no pulmonary problems and no significant or unexpected swelling in either of their brains.

"Things have gone according to surgical plans. There have been no surprises, and none of the potential complications that surgeons have prepared for have occurred," he said.

The surgery in Dallas was the first such procedure since twin Iranian women joined at the head died in July at a Singapore hospital.

Doctors said if the boys were not separated, they would likely never be able to walk without help and face a lifetime of medical complications.

YEARS OF SURGERY

A team of cranial and facial surgeons is repairing the damage to their skulls, using tissue from an area around their thighs that had been expanded -- using balloon-like devices -- months before surgery.

Thomas said the boys were not out of the woods yet and even with a successful separation, they still faced years of reconstructive surgery to repair the places where their skulls had been fused together.