Surgery-hand transplantation-new method
Hand Transplantation: New Method for
Local Immunosuppression Successful
Aug. 21, 2013 — Every year, 15 to 20 people in Switzerland
lose a hand in an accident. Provided suitable preconditions are met, a hand transplant
is the best treatment method, particularly for patients who have lost both hands. The main problem
with this treatment is that patients have to be immunosuppressed, i.e. their total immune system has
to be brought down with drugs to prevent their organism rejecting the foreign
tissue. This treatment is associated with undesirable side effects and
impairments to the quality of life. Until now though,
patients have had no other option.
In laboratory experiments on rats, it has now been possible
to replace systemic (total) immunosuppression with a local treatment of the transplanted
limb. This has been successfully achieved by a research team from the
Department of Plastic and Hand Surgery, Inselspital, and the Department of
Clinical Research (DKF) of the University of Bern under the direction of
scientist Dr Thusitha Gajanayake from Sri Lanka. Professor Robert Rieben from
the DKF, Head of Research in hand transplantation: "The results are very
promising. Just a single treatment results in the complete prevention of a
rejection reaction." Professor Esther Vögelin, Senior Consultant and
Co-Director of the Department of Plastic and Hand Surgery: "This
laboratory success means that in future hand transplant patients can hope for a
significant improvement in quality of life, because systemic immunosuppression
could be reduced or omitted altogether.
The Bern research team is now working with great zeal
towards its long-term goal of performing a hand transplant in Switzerland. In
the longer term this should be done with an optimised approach to
immunosuppression. In fact the latter would be a world's first. On 2 September,
international experts from the USA, India and Austria will discuss the new
method at the invitation of the DKF research team in Bern.
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