Two new hands for the boy making history
AN eight-year-old boy has made medical history as the youngest person to have a double hand transplant.
The operation which will change the life of Zion Harvey was described by his surgeon as ‘monumental’. Lasting 11 hours, it needed a medical team of 40 surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and other staff.
Zion said that his new hands felt ‘weird at first but then good’. His mother Pattie ray, 26, a medical worker, wept when she saw her son with hands once more and said it is like he has been reborn.
eventually he hopes to be able to pick up his little sister, throw a football and swing from a climbing frame, just like other youngsters.
Zion, of Baltimore, maryland, was just two when an infection became gangrenous and his hands and both feet had to be amputated.
Prosthetic legs allowed him to walk, run and jump and he learned to use his forearms to write, eat, play video games and strum a guitar.
But some things remained beyond him and children at school made fun of him.
Although hand transplants have been carried out before, someone so young has never had a double operation. This month’s procedure at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia involved four teams of surgeons working simultaneously, with two focusing on Zion and two on the donor.
Transplant surgeon Scott Levin said: ‘He woke up smiling. There hasn’t been one whimper, one tear, one complaint. This is a monumental step. I hope we can help many more patients like Zion.’
The youngster had a kidney transplant at the age of four and so was already taking the immunosuppressive drugs needed to stop his body rejecting his new hands.
Just weeks after the transplant, he can wiggle and bend his fingers and scratch his chin.
months of physiotherapy and occupational therapy lie ahead but the prognosis is good.
Simon Kay, who performed Britain’s first hand transplant in 2012, said: ‘He had a very good size and skin match. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t making good use of his hands within six months.
‘He’ll never get full function but he’ll get very good function, much better than with artificial hands.’
Professor Kay, of Leeds General Infirmary, has four patients waiting for hand transplants, including one who needs a double operation. mother- of- one Corrine Hutton, 44, of renfrewshire, lost her hands and feet after severe blood poisoning.