A man in China may have regained the use of his hand after it was cut off in an industrial accident. The astonishing part: doctor’s saved the man’s hand by grafting it onto his leg.
Mr. Zhou lost his entire left hand about two weeks ago in a spinning blade machine at the factory he worked at.
Dr. Tang Juyu, the leading surgeon for the surgical team, carried out the grafting procedure. Juyu and the team first realized that they couldn’t simply reattach the hand where it came from as tissues in the severed area were badly damaged.
The team decided to attach the hand to Zhou’s lower right calf, and connect it to blood vessels in the region to keep the tissues from the hand alive. The procedure needed to be done quickly in order to get the blood supply back to the severed hand.
After a month, the blood vessels and the tendons in Zhou’s arm healed and the doctors reattached the hand to its original limb. Since then, Zhou has reportedly been able to slightly move his fingers, and he will continue with rehab to try to regain full mobility of his hand.
Juyu notes that even though the procedure was successful, there are still huge risks to grafting a severed hand. The tissue on the hand could have died or rebuilding it could have failed.
Source for Today’s Article:
Storrs, C., “Doctor’s in China save man’s severed hand by grafting it to his leg,” Cnn.com, July 24, 2015; http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/health/severed-hand/index.html.