In perhaps the first of its kind in the world, a male donor’s hands have been transplanted successfully on a female recipient in a hospital in Kochi, Kerala.
The hands were of a youth, identified as Sachin, 20, a college student in Kochi who recently passed away in a motorbike accident, and the recipient was also a college student, 19-year-old Shreya Siddanagowda, doing chemical engineering in Manipal.

Siddanagowda had lost both her hands in a bus mishap last year, and Sachin’s parents agreed to donate his hands and other organs for transplant. The surgery was carried out by a medical team at the Amrita Institute of Medical Science, Kochi.

The complicated and lengthy surgery was carried out by a team of 20 surgeons and a 16-member anaesthetic team led by Dr Subrahmania Iyer, head of the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Department at the hospital. Local media reported that the entire surgery and transplantation took 13 hours to complete.
Doctors were quoted as saying that the tricky part of the procedure was to accurately identify and connect various nerves, muscles, tendons, and arteries. Early indications are that Siddanagowda’s body has accepted the transplanted hands, but she has to continue medication to ensure her body does not reject the transplanted organ.

Siddanagowda will have to undergo a rigorous procedure of movements of her fingers, wrists and shoulders and doctors believe it may take her up to two years to achieve near-normal movement of her arms.

Reported by Akhel Mathew, Correspondent for Gulf News