A few hours after having his forearm torn off at his workplace, an Avignon resident was able to have it re-implanted. The surgery took place in Marseille.
It is not a matter of a transplant but of a “reimplantation”. The Timone Hospital (AP-HM) announced this Thursday that an exceptional operation had been successfully carried out on July 21 by Dr. André Gay. Last Friday, a 32-year-old worker suffered an extremely serious occupational accident. His forearm was completely torn off by an agricultural machine.
“ In his misfortune, this young man was fortunate to benefit from a very fast treatment, thanks to the SAMU and to the reflexes of the rescuers who immediately placed the limb in the ice ”, underlines Dr. Gay. In fact, the helicopter transport and the coordination of the serious trauma of limbs network set up by the SAMU and the AP-HP have made it possible to reduce the time between the accident and the intervention as much as possible.
Four relocations
Accidented at 9 am, the man was operated on at 12:30 pm Relocation would no longer have been possible after a 6-hour wait. This type of intervention, very rare underlines the communicated of AP-HM, takes place in several stages: stabilization of the bone, then revascularization by suturing the vessels. The second and longest part consists of stitching up the nerves, tendons and muscles as carefully as possible, to give the patient the maximum chance of gradually recovering the functioning of his hand.
Dr Gay has already been able to reimplant four hands to victims, but “for reimplantations above the level of the hand, the recovery is longer and the rehabilitation more complex., warns the surgeon. Because in addition to the muscles of the hand, the muscles of the forearm and wrist must be repaired, re-educated and re-innervated. “.
If the intervention was rapid, as well as the communication of the AP-HM, the doctor wishes to remain cautious: “We will not be able to establish a functional prognosis for three to six months. “.
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