KEM is 1st public hosp in city to do hand transplant

MUMBAI: A young man from Madhya Pradesh underwent a hand transplant at Parel’s KEM Hospital, which became the first public-run institution to carry out the procedure in Mumbai. The 14-hour-long surgery was completed early on Thursday by a team of doctors led by plastic surgeon Dr Vinita Puri. Doctors said the next 10 days will be critical to know if the limb was accepted by the recipient’s body successfully.

“All we need is good wishes and prayers for the patient right now,” said Puri, adding, “Seven to 10 days after the transplant is the most critical phase.”

After the transplant, the recipient was shifted to the intensive care unit (ICU) where he will be monitored round the clock. “The recipient is a double amputee in his late twenties,” said Dr Hemant Deshmukh, dean of KEM Hospital. The team of doctors attempted to transplant both hands, but could go ahead with transplanting only the right hand.

The procedure also marked the city’s first dual-hand donation. The young organ donor was declared brain dead at a hospital in south Mumbai, after which the family consented to donate all organs, tissues and hands. The family’s noble gesture gave a new lease of life to four patients suffering from endstage ailments — the kidneys were transplanted to two patients in KEM and Nanavati hospitals, the liver to a patient at SRCC Hospital and the lungs were sent for transplant at a hospital in Hyderabad. The donor’s heart could not be retrieved.

Thursday’s hand transplant procedure is first for a publicrun hospital and the second one in the city. Mumbai’s first such procedure — a bilateral hand transplant — was carried out on train accident victim Monika More in August 2020 at the privately-run Global Hospital. The hands were donated by family of a brain dead patient in Chennai.

Hand transplants are difficult procedures and much more technical than solid organ transplants like kidneys or liver. These procedures are known as composite allotransplantations and involve connecting two main arteries, bones, multiple veins, nerves and tendons. “Hand transplants are extremely challenging procedures,” said Dr K Subramania Iyer, who led the team that carried out India’s first such procedure at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences in Kochi in 2015. Since then, there have been only about a dozen such procedures in the country. The first person who underwent the bilateral hand transplant is doing very well and is employed as a transplant coordinator at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences. “Hand transplants are even more difficult due to reluctance of families, lack of awareness among coordinators,” he said.