Man Gets First Double-Arm Transplant
(Reuters)
ABCNEWS.com
The world's first double-arm transplant patient was in stable and satisfactory condition today after a 17-hour operation to attach new arms and hands, said a hospital in Lyon, France. The patient, who wished to remain anonymous, was "doing extremely well," one of the surgeons, Dr. Nadey Hakim, said this morning on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.
A team of 50 people, including 18 surgeons, finished the operation Thursday on the 34-year-old Frenchman - whose arms had been amputated in 1996 after he was gravely injured by an explosion. He was reportedly making a homemade firework.
Doctors attached the man's new limbs below the elbow at Edouard-Herriot Hospital in the southwestern French town of Lyon.
In Septmeber 1998, a New Zealand man, also operated on by Dr. Hakim, received the first single-hand transplant. Last year, Matthew Scott became the first American to receive a new hand after an operation in Louisville.
Dangerous Undertaking
The Lyon patient was said to have been encouraged by the success of the two previous hand transplants. Doctors also said he was at a good age to undergo the surgery. They said they would hesitate to perform such a complex procedure on anyone over 45 years old.
The operation, which connects skin, bone, tissue, arteries, muscles and tendons, has serious risks.
Patients must take anti-rejection medication that suppresses the immune system to keep the body from destroying the foreign tissue. But suppression of the immune system leaves the patient more vulnerable to other diseases.
However, transplanting two hands instead of one won't increase the chance of rejection, Hakim said.
"If anything, it would be less rejection because if you think about it, you're getting more organs transplanted from the donor, so you balance each arm and you protect the other against rejection by the body," he said.
"It is a bit like putting a liver and kidney together or a liver and a heart. The rejection would be less than if you put one organ on its own."
Even if the patient doesn't reject the donor hands, he could face other problems, including the failure of nerves to regenerate sufficiently to allow sensation.
The doctors say the patient's biggest problem will be psychological - getting used to having a dead man's arms.
A Race to Operate
The surgeons got together before Christmas to prepare for the operation, but there was no donor available at the time.
They got their opportunity when a 19-year-old man had a sudden death, and the family was kind enough to offer the organs, Hakim said.
"He happened to be in Lyon itself, so that was handy to have the organs fresh enough to be transplanted," Hakim told Good Morning America. The hospital did not release the identity of the donor.
Hakim was about to give a speech in Los Angeles at the time when he heard the donor hands had become available. He immediately boarded a plane to France and joined the surgical team in mid-opeation.
The operation started at 6:00 in the morning and finished at 11:30 in the evening, said Hakim.
Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard, head of transplant surgery at the hospital, led the team of surgeons in Thursday's operation. Australian Earl Owen, director of the Center for Microsurgery in Sydney, Australia also participated.
One in 1998, Now Two
In September 1998, a team also led by Dubernard and Owen at the Edouard-Herriot hospital successfully carried out a rare hand and forearm transplant on Clint Hallam, a 49-year-old New Zealander.
Hallam has experienced no significant signs of rejecting the appendages, surgeons say. He has even been photographed playing the piano and holding a cellular phone with his new hand.
The first American to receive a hand transplant, Matthew Scott, also has been doing well. He has battled a few mild episodes of rejection, but he says he can now tie his shoelaces, has some sensation in a couple of fingertips, and can tell the difference between hot and cold.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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