NHS to Begin Performing Hand Transplants
Beginning this year NHS patients in England will become some of the first in the world to benefit from publicly-funded pioneering hand and upper arm transplants, according to a release issued by NHS England.
Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust has been given the green light to begin assessing suitable adult candidates beginning in April. Potential patients need to pass both a psychological and physiological screening. Each operation is estimated to cost $70,000 (£50,000) last anywhere from 6 to 16 hours, and require a team of four teams of surgeons working simultaneously.
Plastic surgeon professor Simon Kay will be leading this program. Kay performed the UK’s first, and to date only, successful hand transplant in 2012.
In addition to the screening the patients must go through, the donor limb must also match a number of criteria, such as blood type, size, and skin tone. Unlike current prosthetics, the new hands will be warm to the touch and be able to move with greater dexterity than current options.
This is achieved by joining the bones in the hand together with titanium plates, then key muscles and tendons are attached. Surgeons then connect the major blood vessels using microsurgery. After the blood begins flowing into the hand, the remaining nerves, muscles and tendons are attached before the skin is stitched up. Some sensation of touch returns almost immediately, but it usually takes approximately 18 months before full mobility and sensations return, according to IFLScience.com. Patients are then required to take immune-suppressant drugs for the rest of their lives to stop their body from rejecting the hand.
