X-Message-Number: 10467 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 17:24:48 -0400 From: Jan Coetzee <> Subject: Hand transplant Amputee Gets Donor's Arm, Hand In Surgical First LYON, France (Reuters) - In a surgical first, an international team of doctors sewed a donor's hand and arm on a man whose arm had been amputated in 1989 after an accident, a French hospital announced Thursday. The extremely delicate operation, which took place Wednesday at the Edouard Herriot hospital in Lyon in central France, took 13-1/2 hours, hospital officials said. The surgical breakthrough ``gives hope to millions of victims of workplace and domestic accidents, survivors of war or land mines and individuals born with hereditary deformities,'' the hospital said in a printed statement. The graft was performed on Australian businessman Clint Hallam, 48, who had lost his hand in a logging accident, the hospital said. The name of the donor was not disclosed, but hospital officials said the individual was a brain-dead patient. The medical team of six doctors included international experts in microsurgery, orthopedics and transplant surgery. It was led by Drs Jean-Michel Dubernard of Lyon and Earl Owen of Sydney, Australia, the hospital said. The procedure initially involved attaching the bone of the donated hand and forearm to Hallam's forearm. Afterwards doctors painstakingly sutured together the blood vessels, nerves, tendons, muscles and skin. It will take some time to determine to what extent the man will be able to gain use of the grafted arm and hand, doctors cautioned. J.C. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10467