Facts About Multiples: Conjoined Twins

Facts About Multiples
An Encyclopedia of Multiple Birth Records

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Conjoined Twins

Conjoined Twins Statistics and Diagrams

Total Sets
I have recorded 1382 sets of conjoined twins in the world as of October 2008.

Earliest Set
945 - A set was born in Armenia in 945, boys who were apparently separated and died.

Situs Reversus (Reversed position of internal organs)
1851 - Millie & Christine McCoy, (North Carolina, July 11 1851 to October 12 1912) were pygopagus twins, the heart was on the left side in one, and the right side in the other.
2003 - Unidentified (Papua New Guinea, October 12 2003). One twin with situs inversus of the heart. They died October 21 2003 of pneumonia.

Oldest Conjoined Male Twins (Deceased)
63 years old - Chang & Eng Bunker (Thailand, May 11 1811). They passed away within 3 hours of each on January 7 1874.
63 years old - Giacomo & Giovanni Battista Tocci (Italy, 1877).

Oldest Conjoined Female Twins (Deceased)
61 years old - Millie & Christine McCoy (North Carolina, July 11 1851). They died on October 12 1912.
53 years old - Masha & Dasha Krivoshylapova (Russia, January 4 1950). They were ischiopagus tripus twins, and both died in April 2003 at 53 according to news reports.

Oldest Conjoined Male Twins (Living)
1952 - Ronnie & Donnie Galyon (USA, October 28 1952). They are omphalopagus.

Oldest Conjoined Female Twins (Living)
1961 - Lori & Reba Schappell (USA, September 18 1961). They are craniopagus.

Oldest Surviving Conjoined Twin
99 years old - Josephine Hinojosa (Cuba, November 15 1912) Her sister Guadelupe died after separation, Josephine lived to 99.

Non-Separated Twins
There are only a few sets of non-separated conjoined twins in the world. Without having complete information it is very hard to come up with a solid number, but based on a pure guess, there are probably around 20 sets of non-separated twins in the world. Some of the known sets are:

Ronnie & Donnie Galyon (USA) (omphalopagus)
Lori & Reba Schappell (USA) (craniopagus)
Abby & Britty Hensel (USA) (dicephalus)
Carmen & Lupita Andrade-Solis (Mexico) (dicephalus)
Ayara & Jayara Ratun (aka Ganga and Jamuna) (India) (ischio-omphalopagus tripus)
Maria Alejandra & Maria Jose Vitora (Venezuela) (thoraco-omphalopagus)
Maria & Consolata (Tanzania, 1997) (dithoracic parapagus dipus)
Unidentified (El Salvador, 2001)
Tatiana & Krista Hogan (British Columbia, Canada, October 25 2006) (craniopagus)

There are quite a few infant sets that have not been separated (or separation has not been decided on), and other sets for which I have no information on.

First Successful Separations
1689 - Unidentified (Switzerland) Female twins joined by a ligament only 12 centimeters wide. Doctors separated the twins, and both lived.
1952 - Unidentified (Ohio) Joined at the sternum. Separated December 14 1952 by Dr. Jac S. Geller at Mount Sinai Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.
1953 - Carolyn & Catherine Mouton (Louisiana) (pygopagus).
1970 - Anna & Barbara Rozycki (England). They were omphalopagus. Both are alive and well and continue to live in England.
1970s - Andrew & Grant Priestley (Australia). The first to be successfully separated in Australia.
1979 - Chang Chun-yi & Chang Chun-jen (China). They were separated at 25 months old. They were parapagus twins, sharing 3 legs.

Oldest Separation
11 years old - Gita & Zita Rezakhanov (Kyrgyzstan, 1992). They were ischiopagus tripus twins, and separated April 2 2003 in Russia. Both survive.
7 years old - Viet & Duc Nguygen (Vietnam, February 25 1981). Separated October 4 1988. Both survive.
6 years old - Giuseppina & Santina Foglia of (Italy). They were pygopagus.

Ladan and Laleh Bijani (Iran) attempted separation in July 2003 at age 28, but both died.

Fastest Separation
45 mins - Zainab & Jannat Rahman (England?) Separated at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital on January 30 2003. They were omphalopagus sharing a liver. Both survive.

Hospital Performing the Most Separations
18 - Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, by 1997.

Youngest Mother of Conjoined Twins
13 years old - Unidentified (Argentina, November 1992)
13 years old - Unidentified (Phillippines, March 2006)
14 years old - Unidentified (Brazil, October 17 2002). Mother had dicephalus boys, both later died, as they shared a heart.
15 years old - Sosa (Guatemala, July 12 2002). Had dicephalus girls sharing a heart on July 12 2002. Both girls later died.
15 years old - Johana Vitora (Venezuela, September 10 2003). Had Maria Alejandra & Maria Jose
15 years old - Rodriguez (Dominican Republic, June 9 1969). Had omphalopagus boys.

Youngest Father of Conjoined Twins
19 years old - McCray (Indiana, 2004) [I suspect some of the partners of the mothers listed above are younger, but news articles often don't mention the fathers]

Conjoined Triplets
All conjoined - I could only find two cases.

Unidentified (Sicily, Italy, 1834) 3 boys born with a single torso, two hearts, two stomachs, two lungs & three heads. The case was profiled in Gould & Pyle's Curiosities of Medicine.

Unidentified (Samsun, Turkey, 1955?) Three heads, two pairs of arms, two pairs of legs; lived for 2 hours. On autopsy four lungs, three livers, three brains, two hearts and two kidneys were found. Information appeared in Sexology Magazine in 1955, they cited the Journal of the American Medical Association for the information.

There have been 43 sets of triplets born with 2 conjoined. Only 6 of those sets have all three surviving, 17 sets I have no stats on, and the rest had one or both conjoined babies die.

Conjoined Quadruplets
1953 - Totsaas (Norway, September 5 1953) Two of the babies were conjoined, and died at birth.

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