LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters)
- A surgical team has heralded the second hand transplant in the United States
and the ninth in the world as likely to last for a Jackson, Mich., man who underwent
a 13-hour operation over the weekend.
Lead surgeon Dr. Warren Breidenbach
told reporters on Saturday that he anticipated a successful result from the complex
surgery that used the left hand of a brain-dead donor to replace the hand Jerry
Fisher lost in a firecracker accident four years ago.
Breidenbach's team
performed the first U.S. hand transplant in January 1999 at Louisville's Jewish
Hospital, where the marathon surgery also took place beginning on Friday night.
The
first recipient of a U.S. transplant, Matthew Scott, 35, of New Jersey, has not
experienced any major problems from the attachment of his new hand, which he is
able to use for many functions.
Fisher, 36, a gutter-installation contractor
and father of three sons, received the transplanted left hand from an unidentified
donor, whose arm was amputated at the elbow.
Surgeons said that the donor
must be living when the amputation occurs because blood circulation is essential
for the success of the operation, and tissue deteriorates rapidly after death.
Hospital
spokespersons said Fisher would have to remain in Jewish Hospital for at least
three months under close observation against the possibility of tissue rejection.
They
said the estimated $170,000 cost of the procedure was provided by the surgeons
free of charge to Fisher, the president of a Michigan motorcycle-riding club.
Many
hand surgeons have been cautious about endorsing hand transplants, saying they
are highly risky and still in the very experimental stages. Other hand-transplant
operations have been performed in the past two years in France, Austria and Italy,
with apparently successful results. |
