First hand transplant recipient on the way to recovery

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMar 8 2011

A 26 year old mother has received the world’s first hand transplant. The 17 member surgical team from the Hand Transplant Program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has performed the operation over 14 hours. They painstakingly attached tendons, blood vessels and nerves. The patient had lost her hand in a traffic accident 5 years ago. The patient is currently recovering.

Dr. Kodi Azari, surgical director of the program and an associate professor of orthopaedic surgery and plastic surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA said, “I am ecstatic with the results — a little tired, but ecstatic.”

According to NBCLA's Dr. Bruce Hensel, it is hard to predict how a transplanted hand will do. “It may be fully functional, partly functional or hardly functional at all.  There is also a small possibility that the hand could get infected or scar, preventing full use…However, when experienced surgeons perform the operation there is a good chance that it will work well; especially in one of its most important functions; grasping with thumb and forefinger and pinky.  As time goes on, the likelihood of infections and scarring decrease and the chance of success increases,” he added.

This hand-transplant program was created at UCLA last July, where experts put out a call for people willing to take part in a clinical study of the procedure. According to the university, nine people have received hand transplants in the United States since 1999. The UCLA program is only the fourth of its type in the nation.