In a first, youth’s hands transplanted

Jith Kumar Saji who recovered well after the surgery is ready for discharge. He had suffered from electrical burns in an accident in 2013 and his arms had to be amputated at the elbow. His donor was 24-year-old youth Raison Sunny who was declared brain dead after a road accident. The harvested hands were brought to Amrita Hospital from Angamaly. 

Jith, son of a mason from Kannur, received financial support from philanthropists for the procedure carried out in the end of May. A huge team of doctors including plastic surgeons, orthopaedic surgeons and anaesthetists, immunologists and rehabilitation specialists and transplant coordinators were involved in the case at various levels. The surgery lasted for 14 hours. 

Talking to DTNext, Dr Subramania Iyer, HOD, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the institute, said that such transplants are rare, but can improve the quality of a person’s life considerably.

“One may not necessarily need hands to survive, but it helps them tremendously when they undergo such a procedure. The patient has to take medicines to prevent rejection. It takes a year, for the hands to be functional and the medicines can cause complications. The patient has to be extremely committed to get the best results,” he said. 

In hand transplants done above the wrist, the tendons are connected. But in a forearm transplant, these connections have to be made to the muscle mass and there is a need for identification, tagging and connecting the nerves, tendons and arteries, making it extremely challenging. 

In early 2015, the institute had performed the first hand transplant on a 30-year-old Manu and a few months later an Afghan soldier Abdul Rahim. Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences has had close to 200 patients approaching for the procedure in the last one year.