A two-hand transplant was successfully performed in Lyon. But the operation, which took place in November, casts doubt on its legal framework,
A man of around 50, with four limbs amputated, benefited from a new double hand transplant performed at the Hospices Civils de Lyon (HCL) in November 2016, revealed Wednesday Le Figaro. This is the ninth allograft (with donor) of hand (s) performed in France since 1998 (eight in Lyon and one in Créteil). This last operation was carried out as part of a hospital clinical research program (PHRC) “obtained to perform a series of transplants, five initially then two additional”, specified the HCL, adding that it was about the last vacant place in the program.
According to Progress, this patient, whose identity has not been disclosed, had been awaiting hands “for three years for lack of donors”. The latter therefore did not benefit froma voted amendment at the beginning of November as part of the Social Security financing bill for 2017, and entered into force on January 1, 2017.
This modified the previous legal framework. The text is indeed in the direction of giving the Regional Health Agencies (ARS) the possibility of authorizing, for a maximum period of five years, a health establishment to practice an innovative transplant activity, but the texts defining the modalities and conditions of implementation have not yet been published. The Lyon transplant, which therefore did not intervene in this context, is nevertheless causing a stir in the medical community.
Interventions in the United States
“I am very surprised”, confides Professor Laurent Lantieri, surgeon at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital (Paris) contacted by Why actor. He recalls that he had to organize the transplant of one of his patients in the United States last summer, for lack of an adequate PHRC.
“In addition, I do not understand that one can put a patient within the framework of a PHRC 17 years after the initiation of this program. This means that the research poses some problems. I don’t know of a research program in which we have 7 patients in 17 years ”he blurted out with irony.
Concerning him, he cannot, it is true, carry out these interventions in France. While waiting for a contrary decision, he is already preparing new interventions in the United States. This woman amputated four limbs following an abortion is one of the patients he intends to bring across the Atlantic for an operation. “At the moment, Priscilla is still waiting for a donor. We cannot have one law in Lyon and another in Paris. It’s amazing, the rights of my patients are being violated in an unimaginable way, ”he concludes.
Other upcoming programs
Le Figaro reports to him the words of a former member of the cabinet of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health who evokes a much more murky reality: “Everyone is doing what he wants at the moment in hospitals. There will be wild initiatives because the Ministry of Health no longer has authority within three months of the Presidential election ”.
According to Progress, new medico-economic research programs (PRME) are awaiting authorization from the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM).
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