Siamese Twins’ Wounds Cleansed

BALTIMORE — Siamese twins born joined at the head and surgically separated a week ago returned to the operating room for cleansing of their scalp wounds, officials at Johns Hopkins Hospital said Saturday.

Patrick and Benjamin Binder, who were in the operating room for two hours Friday night, “both tolerated the procedure well,” spokeswoman Lisa Hillman said.

“It was a preventive measure to irrigate scalp wounds to prevent infection,” said Joanne Rogers, another spokeswoman.

The absence of brain swelling also enabled doctors to complete closure of Benjamin’s scalp wound with his own skin, Hillman said. Patrick’s wound was closed earlier. The twins had shared skull bone and a major vein but their brains were entirely separate.

The West German infants remained in critical but stable condition, officials said.

The conditions of the 7-month-old boys have remained essentially unchanged since their 22-hour operation last weekend.

Sometime this weekend, doctors planned to begin gradually reducing the drugs used to maintain the boys in artificial comas, induced to give their brains time to recover from the stress of the surgery.