Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Successful case of double hands transplantation

I saw the incredible news today. A man regained his lost hands with a successful transplantation surgery.


According to the media, the recipient was a 30-year-old military captain. He lost his hands in a task of defusing mines in Afghanistan three years ago. The hands were transplanted from a brain dead 54 years old Indian.

Hindustan Times: Transplant surgery gives Afghan armyman hands of brain dead Indian

The surgery took 15 hours. It is not a surprising duration in the modern surgical procedure. Recent progress of anesthesia has enabled several challenging operations. It is surprising that he is not the first person who was given two hands by the transplantation surgery in India.

Transplantation surgery was realized several decades ago. But limbs is harder than internal organ to transplant because they require the inosculation of nerves. Nerves, both sensory and movement, are quite delicate. With simply jointing the limb, you could not move it at all. Rehabilitation is another issue. Some nervous damage can cause serious pain or other abnormal sense. The brain of the recipient has to recognize the new limbs as his own. It will take a long time.

Dual transplantation seems much more difficult than connecting single hand. It may place considerable stress on the recipient. It is also difficult to arrange adequate number of staffs at the same time. However, the donor's limbs would have decayed if the two operations had not been performed immediately.

I have read an article of successful transplantation of a hand more than a decade ago. After that, much progress may have been accomplished. I respect the surgeons and others involved in this miraculous operation. I hope the recovery of the recipient. In addition, we have to be concerned to the cause he had to take such a stressful experience.

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