Brazilian conjoined twins were successfully separated by two teams of doctors on different sides of the world using virtual reality technology.
The two three-year-old twins were conjoined at the head and underwent surgery in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with the help of virtual reality (VR) headsets working with a team of doctors at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, the BBC reported.
Bernardo and Arthur Lima were able to be separated as doctors, for the first time, worked in a "virtual reality room" together while wearing the VR headsets. One of the surgeons, Noor ul Owase Jeelani, described the operation as "space-age stuff".
As Sky News reported, the twins had connected brains and surgeons has to spend months studying virtual reality techniques before they were able to begin the actual procedure on the two boys.
Conjoined twins who shared fused brains have been successfully separated in Brazil.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 1, 2022
Surgeons spent months trialling techniques using virtual reality before beginning the real procedures on the three-year-old boys, Bernardo and Arthur Lima.
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Jeelani said, "You can imagine how reassuring that is for the surgeons" as the success could mean a boost in operations of this kind around the world.
"In some ways these operations are considered the hardest of our time, and to do it in virtual reality was just really man-on-Mars stuff," he said.
This was the sixth separation for Dr. Jeelani who has operated on twins from Sudan, Israel, Turkey and Pakistan.
Jeelani is part of an organization called Gemini Untwined which works to try and safely separate conjoined twins around the world.