First child double hand transplant announced in US

NEW YORK, United States – An eight-year-old American has become the world’s youngest recipient of a transplant of both hands, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia announced Tuesday. Surgeons operated for 10 hours to carry out the incredibly complicated surgery on Baltimore native Zion Harvey. He previously had both his hands and feet amputated and had a kidney transplant following a major infection. The smiling, precocious youngster had learned to eat, write and even play video games without hands. Now he says he is looking forward to being able to throw a football with his own hands. It took a team of 40 doctors, nurses and other staff from plastic and reconstructive surgery, orthopedic surgery, anesthesiology and radiology, to pull off the pioneering surgery. Surgeons first painstakingly attached bone, then veins. Once the blood was circulating, surgeons connected tendons, muscles and nerves.

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