Italian surgeons have achieved another medical first during a double hand transplant operation carried out on 52-year-old Carla Mari in the San Gerardo Hospital in the city of Monza [Lombardy].
Although this is not the first time that a double hand transplant has been carried out in the world, it is the first time that a new, anti-rejection technique involving cells from the patient’s own bone marrow has been used.
These cells were re-introduced into the woman’s body during the 24 hours following the operation. Dr Andrea Biondi of the San Gerardo “Cell Factory” told Corriere della Sera that these cells act, in a way that scientists do not yet fully understand, on the body’s immuno-suppressive system. In the coming days signora Mari will also receive a transplant of adipose tissue, again from her own body, and a skin graft from her back.
Signora Mari, who is married with two children, had undergone amputation of her hands and feet because she was suffering from sepsis, a whole-body inflammatory state with infection. The artificial hands with which she was fitted were causing her distress and she was placed on the list for hand transplants in 2008. On Monday night, a 58-year-old woman who died in Cremona became the donor.
Doctors say that signora Mari is recovering well so let us hope that she will soon be able to embrace her husband and two children again.
