World's first double arm transplant

Jul 30 2008

A German farm worker who lost both arms in a farm accident has become the world's first double arm transplant recipient.

In a 16-hour operation carried out by surgeon Professor Edgar Biemer, the man was given the arms of a 19 year old teenage boy who is thought to have been killed in a road accident.

The 54-year-old man reportedly contacted the professor after seeing him on TV.

Professor Biemer who is a plastic surgeon, along with his colleague Dr. Christof Hoehnke, headed a surgical team of 30 which carried out the surgery at a clinic in Munich.

The patient lost his arms in a threshing machine accident six years ago and is said to be recovering well from the surgery, he is expected to remain in hospital for five weeks of intensive therapy and the surgical team have warned that it is too early to say whether the transplants were successful.

Professor Biemer says the chances of rejection are greater with limbs than with any other transplants because the skin is the largest immune barrier for the body and instinctively rejects skin which it does not recognise.

Professor Biemer says new drugs can stop the rejection and the patient in this case will be required to take such medication for the rest of his life.

How the psychological effect of having the arms of a man 35 years his junior will manifest itself remains unclear.

For the surgery the medical staff were divided into five teams with two teams each removing one arm from the donor, while two other teams prepared the patient to receive them.

The fifth team removed veins from the donor which had to be taken as part of the transplant to allow for a better blood flow and the surgeons then joined the bone of the donor’s upper arm to the patient’s shoulder sockets before connecting arteries and veins.

As new nerves will have to grow, it could be two years before the patient gets any feeling in his fingertips.

Australian Clint Hallam was the first limb transplant recipient, his procedure was carried out in Lyon, France, in September 1998.

The surgery gave Hallam a new hand after he had lost his own 16 years earlier in an accident with a circular saw but despite the success of the surgery, at Mr Hallam's request it was removed in February 2001 because he had become ‘mentally detached’ from the hand.

Five years ago an Austrian patient had a partial arm transplant, in which new hands and lower arms were attached and a partial face transplant, again by French surgeons, gave 38 year old Isabelle Dinoire a new face, two and a half years ago after her own was savaged by her dog.