Lyon: double hand graft

Lyon: double hand graft

The team of Professor Jean-Michel DUBERNARD succeeded in a world first medical at the Louis Herriot hospital in Lyon by grafting both hands and twoarm to a 33-year-old man who had been amputated after an artisanal rocket explosion. A particularly meticulous operation that required the simultaneous intervention of 18 surgeons. The patient, a painter and father of two, had been waiting for his new hands for four years. The operation lasted seventeen hours Jean-Michel DUBERNARD, head of the urology and transplantation department: "This is a very thorough procedure in terms of surgery, but surgery is only one aspect of the whole process. Immuno-suppression and prevention of rejection are the key to this type of transplantation. ' Archive of Clint HALLAM transplanted by hand 16 months ago which regained sensitivity and manages to write. This medical feat has a counter-part, a very heavy anti-rejection treatment with a long-term risk of serious illness. Isn’t the cure worse than the evil? That is why the ethics committee asked the Lyon team to limit transplants to amputees with both hands, a handicap so heavy that it justifies taking risks. Professor Michel MERLE, head of the surgery department of the main CHU of Nancy: "It remains an exceptional surgery. We must not trivialize this surgery, a heavy act, which is heavy by the daily treatment, heavy by the complications of the immunosuppressive treatment. The patient needs to be made aware of this, as there is a risk of altering his or her life expectancy. ' On an experimental basis, Professor DUBERNARD’s team is expected to perform five transplants with both hands in the next two years. The patient is doing well, but it is only in two or three years that we will be able to judge whether or not this type of operation is appropriate.

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File : Organ transplants

Publication date : 14 January 2000