Ladan and Laleh Bijani

Ladan Bijani and Laleh Bijani (in Persian: لادن و لاله بیژنی) (January 17, 1974 – July 8, 2003) were Iranian law graduates. They were conjoined twin sisters, joined at the head, who died after their complicated surgical separation.

They were born in Shiraz, a city in southwest Iran, to Dadollah Bijani and Maryam Safari, members of a farming family from Lohrasb. The Bijani sisters were lost in a hospital in 1979 after the doctors responsible for them fled back to the United States during the Islamic revolution. The Bijanis' parents did not find the sisters again until several years later in Karaj, where Dr. Alireza Safaian adopted them. Even though Dadollah Bijani won the custody against Safaian, the sisters chose to spend their childhood with Safaian.

They faced some difficulties because of their conjoined nature. Since they had to study together, they needed to choose a common career path. Ladan wanted to be a lawyer, while Laleh wished to become a journalist; in the end, they settled on Ladan's choice. They studied law for four years at Tehran University. Most other personal decisions also had to meet each other's approval. For these and other reasons, they had wanted to be separated since they were children. Laleh hoped that she could then move to Tehran, the capital city of Iran, to study journalism, while her sister continued with graduate studies in law and then move to Shiraz.

In addition, the sisters had different hobbies. While Laleh liked to, among other things, play computer games, Ladan preferred computer programming. Ladan also described her sister as more introverted and herself quite talkative.

In 1996, they travelled to Germany, trying to convince doctors there to separate them; the German doctors however declined to operate, saying that the risk of separation surgery would be too high for both of them.

In November 2002, after meeting Dr. Keith Goh, a Singaporean neurosurgeon who successfully separated the Shrestha sisters (Ganga and Jamuna), who had previously also been joined at the head, the Bijani sisters travelled to Singapore to undergo the controversial operation. Even though they were warned by the doctors that the surgery to separate them would still be very risky, the sisters were very determined. Their decision to go ahead with the operation caused an international media blitz.

After seven months in the Southeast Asian country doing extensive psychiatric and legal evaluations, they went to the operating table (figuratively speaking, as they required a specially-designed chair that allowed the surgery to be performed with both sisters in a sitting position) on July 6, 2003, under the care of a large team of international specialists at Raffles Hospital, composed of 28 surgeons and more than 100 support staff working in shifts.

The attempt to separate the twins turned out to be very difficult, because their brains not only shared a major vein (the superior sagittal sinus), but had fused together. The separation was achieved on July 8, 2003, but it was announced then that the twins were in critical condition, both having lost a large volume of blood due to complications of the operation.

The separation stage of the surgery completed at 13:30 (Singapore time, UTC +8), but there was significant blood loss during the blood vessel repairing process, and Ladan Bijani died at around 14:30 on the operating table; her sister Laleh died a short time afterwards at 16:00. The deaths were announced by the chairman of Raffles Hospital, Dr. Loo Choon Yong.

The sisters were buried in accordance to Shiite Muslim traditions in separate tombs, side by side, in Lohrasb. The sisters willed their property to blind and orphaned children.

A Documentary about the operation was broadcast soon after.

External links

* " [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3055016.stm Surgeons' sorrow at death of twins] " - BBC News article, dated July 8, 2003, containing an account by Dr. Loo of the operation. Last retrieved November 15, 2006.
* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/twins.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set= "Till Death Do Us Part"] , from Wired Magazine, by Joshua Davis. Dated October 2003. Last retrieved November 15, 2006.
* [http://www.payvand.com/news/03/jul/1168.html Comments and Questions about Laleh-Ladan fatal surgery by: Dr. Mohammad Ala]