Bangalore, November 07: The 27-hour complicated and risky surgery on two-year-old Lakshmi, to separate the 'parasitic conjoined twin', was successfully completed at a multi-speciality hospital here today and her condition was stable.

"The operation on Lakshmi has been successfully completed.

She is stable and has been shifted to the ICU where she will be closely monitored for the next 48 to 72 hours which will be critical," Dr Sharan Patil, the paediatric surgeon who headed the team that operated upon Lakshmi told PTI.

Lakshmi's parents Shambu and Poonam who had travelled all the way from Bihar for the operation are "very happy and relieved.

However, the fact that the complicated and risky surgery has been successfully completed, is still sinking in," he said.

The parents will be allowed to meet Lakshmi, who has been put on ventilator, for a few moments in the afternoon today, Patil said.

"The surgery which began at 7 am yesterday was completed at about 10 am today.

We were able to take away the parasitic twin at around 12.15 midnight.

We then had to reconstruct the pelvic ring and it got over this morning," Patil said.

He extended the credit for the successful surgery to "the total coordination between the anaesthetic, paediatric, neurosurgery, orthopaedic and micro vascular teams, who were present throughout the marathon surgery".

Patil said, the teams were expecting abnormal anatomy and careful study of each organ was carried out before they proceeded.

"A major and critical step of separating the spines was achieved yesterday," Patil said.

Though Lakshmi's blood volume had to be changed twice, utmost care was taken to minimise the need for blood transfusion, he said.

Good wishes and prayers poured in for the girl not only from Bangalore but from all over the country.

"It has been an amazing and tremendously satisfying experience for us," Patil said.

"However, we are still not ready to celebrate as she will be in the critical zone for the next 48 to 72 hours," he said.

For Ashley D'cruz, chief paediatric surgeon, "the surgery went remarkably as per plan.

We had most of the information required from pre-operative imaging and investigations and therefore there were very few surprises on the operating table and we were able to preserve all structures planned".

There was a kidney present in the parasitic twin which was connected to the urinary bladder and was working well.

"We preserved it and moved it up along with blood supply to place it in Lakshmi's body", he said.

The team was also able to separate the duplicated large intestine.

"We took out all poorly developed structures on the right side which included a part of duplicated colon, internal reproductive organs and small urinary bladder".

All the normal structures going to the left side of the body were preserved, Ashley said.

"So now Lakshmi has a normal rectum, anus, a normal urinary system and reproductive system," he said.

She however needs to be monitored in the ICU where she has been shifted and put on ventilator for the next 48 to 72 hours and it will prove to be the deciding factor, he said.

"The joy and professional satisfaction of being able to help this little child has been the prime motivating force," Ashley said.

"We are grateful to the whole country from where good wishes poured in and more so to the Providence which played an important role," he said.

Lakshmi's father said his wife Poonam had not eaten even a morsel of food since yesterday and hoped she would eat something now.

On being asked when he would see his daughter, Shambhu said "whenever the doctors allow us".

Shambhu and his wife were still fervently praying for the recovery of their little daughter.

Though the doctors had opined that the surgery would take 40 hours, it was completed in 27 hours by a team of 36 doctors.

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