Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Health & Medicine

Man’s hand is grafted onto his foot for transplant

livia rusu by livia rusu
June 22, 2014
in Health & Medicine, News, Technology
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

ass

Chinese doctors have grafted a man’s hand onto his food in order to preserve it until they could transplant it back to its rightful place.

If a body part becomes severed from the body, there is only a limited period of time before it can be reattached – usually just 2-3 hours. Adding some ice to it will increase the period of time, but not by long. Without a blood supply, muscles and tissues cannot last long, and the damage may become irreversible.

ADVERTISEMENT

Unfortunately, even when medical assistance is available, it’s impossible to immediately reattach the body part. Such was the case of Xiao Wei from China, who lost his hand in a work related accident. His entire arm was crushed, and unfortunately, the wounds were so severe that the doctors had other bigger problems to fix fast before reattaching his hand; also, the arm had to heal first, in order to be possible to reattach the hand. So instead, they attached it to his ankle, from where it could “borrow” the blood supply, thus surviving long enough; one month later, surgeons were able to remove the hand from the ankle and replant it back on his arm.

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

“His injury was severe. Besides ripping injuries, his arm was also flattened.”. doctors explained. “We had to clear and treat his injuries before taking on the hand reattachment surgery.”

So far, Wei hasn’t regained full control of his hand, but he’s making considerable progress, and doctors are confident that he will do so relatively soon. Grafting body parts onto other places of the human body is not entirely unheard of, but it is an extremely rare procedure – though it’s understandable (and quite admirable) that they chose to do this.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Chinese are pretty experienced in microsurgery,” Mr Cairian Healy of the Royal College of Surgeons in England told the BBC. “And the concept of saving a severed part of the body by attaching it to another part of the body to give it a blood supply is well recognised. The ankle is a hard place to graft though. Usually surgeons would go for the armpit because the blood supply is better.”

 

ShareTweetShare
livia rusu

livia rusu

Livia's main interests are people, and how they think. Having a background in marketing and sociology, she is in love with social sciences, and has a lot of insight and experience on how humans and societies work. She is also focused on how humans interact with technology.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.