The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.

How does the first boy live, which transplanted donor arms

'22.07.2017'

Source: with the BBC

Zion Harvey. Photo: screenshot from video

In 2015, the world shook the news of an eight-year-old boy from a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, to whom doctors had a hand transplant operation for the first time in history. Previously, such a complex operation was performed on all 20 adults in the world. Zion Harvey is the first child. His story caused a wide resonance in medical circles.

Two years later, with new hands 10-year-old boy already plays baseball, transmits with the BBC.

Zion can hold a fork and a knife, write with a pen, dress herself. And recently I learned how to use a baseball bat. He admits that he wants to write a letter to people who gave him the hands of their son and thank them.

Doctors are proud of the successes of little Zion and say that he is quickly recovering.

According to them, the boy's brain has fully adapted to the hands received from the donor and now perceives them as his own. This is evidenced by the results of neurological tests.

“He now knows how to handle the bat much better and coordinate his movements, and in addition can clearly write his name,” says Dr. Sandra Amaral, who is part of the team of doctors at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, which treated the boy. - Its tactile sensations are also improved. He can touch his mother's cheek and feel that touch. "

An article by the attending physicians about the operation and the healing process is published in a medical journal. The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health journal.

New hands of Zion

Zion Harvey. Photo: screenshot from video

At the age of two, Zion became seriously ill - he developed an infection, and doctors had to amputate both of his arms at the wrist, as well as both legs below the knee. The kidneys of the child practically did not work, and he was threatened with death from toxicosis.

“When I was two years old, I was ill and both my hands were cut off,” he himself describes what happened to him.

At the age of four, after two years of regular kidney dialysis treatments, Zion received a kidney transplant from his mother, Patti Rae. It took another four years before he received new hands from a donor - a deceased boy from Baltimore.

Dangerous operation

Zion's two-arm transplant operation in June 2015 attracted special attention of specialists. Although this was not the first operation of its kind - the first double hand transplant took place in 1998 - Zion became the youngest patient ever to have both hands transplanted at once. Post-transplant patients must take special medications throughout their lives to prevent rejection of the transplanted organs. Such medications can cause serious consequences for the body, which means that the transplant operation is risky, and the risk should not outweigh the positive effects of the transplant.

Doctors believe that Zion will have the courage and determination to overcome all the difficulties in his path. Zion had already taken similar drugs after a kidney transplant from his mother, and doctors who followed him for a year and a half were convinced that a double hand transplant would benefit him, despite the risk of such an operation. After that, it took another three months until a suitable donor was found, which had the necessary parameters - hand size, skin color and the same blood group.

A special group of doctors, which included 10 surgeons, performed an operation on transplanting new hands to Zion throughout the night and early morning. The main problem with the operation was the connection of all the tiny blood vessels of the hands, which feed the limbs with blood and support their viability. Dr. Benjamin Chang, director of the transplant program at the Philadelphia Hospital, recalls:

“We wanted to make sure the transplant was a complete success for our patient, and for life.”

And now, two years later, Zion is feeling better.

Zion Harvey. Photo: screenshot from video

There were several moments during the first year after the operation, when the boy’s doctors were afraid that his body would begin to reject new hands. Fortunately, these symptoms were overcome by changing the medication.

Doctors say that they are particularly impressed by how Zion's brain reacts to the emergence of new hands, despite the fact that during a very important period of development of a child aged from two to eight years old, when the motor functions of the brain are formed, his hands were missing . The leading surgeon at the hospital, Dr. Scott Levin, says:

“His brain is clearly receiving and sending signals from his hands. The hands obey the commands of the brain and move. And this fact is quite remarkable in itself. ”

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