A 30-year-old former Afghan military captain from Kandahar, who lost his hands while defusing mines in the war torn country, now has two Indian hands by a successful transplant carried out at an institute in Kochi.
The donor was a 54-year-old brain dead accident victim from Kerala, perhaps, the first case of twin-hand transplant on any citizen in Afghanistan.
According to news released Abdul Rahim lost both his hands during demining operations in Kandahar three years ago. Abdul Raheem approached Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences four months ago, after scouting for hand transplant in several countries.
The transplant was carried out in a marathon surgical procedure lasting for almost 15 hours with more than 20 surgeons and eight anaesthetics participating in it last month.”Each hand required connecting two bones, two arteries, four veins and about 14 tendons. The immune suppressant drugs were started before the start of the surgery and continued after it,” the doctor said.
“Raheem has regained considerable amount of function of both his hands using them for day-to-day activities. He will need intensive physiotherapy for another 9 to 10 months, for which he will have to stay back in Kochi,” said Subramania Iyer, Professor and Head of the Plastic Surgery department.
Prem Nair, Medical Director of AIMS said that the family of the brain dead victim was counseled for the donation and they agreed after confirming that the hands will be replaced by prosthetic limbs to reduce deformity of the dead.
According to Nair the first such transplant in the country was also done four months ago at the Kochi-based hospital and the recipient, 30-year-old Manu is progressing extremely well, doing all routine activities.