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Science
Friday > Archives
> 1998
> July
> July 31, 1998:
Hour Two: The Hand
In the 1991 movie "Body Parts," an arm is grafted onto the body of a psychologist (played by Jeff Fahey) to replace an arm lost in a car accident. Of course, the donor of the replacement arm turns out to be a murderer, the arm takes on a life of its own, and the expectable mayhem ensues. Hollywood is Hollywood.
But what if scientists actually could transplant body parts that way?
| A team of doctors at the University of Louisville, Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center, and the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky announced this week that they want to attempt a hand transplant by the end of the year. They hope to find a suitable person in need of a hand, attach a hand removed from a cadaver, and make it functional. It's a very difficult procedure - bones, muscles, tendons, and nerves all have to be connected properly. |  | The skin from the arm must be encouraged to knit with the skin of the donor hand. The problem of rejection, caused by the reaction of the body's immune system to foreign tissue, is an even bigger challenge to be dealt with.
There is about a 50% chance that the transplanted hand would be rejected during the first year alone. Doctors do not expect the transplanted hand to work as well as an original hand. If all goes well, a transplanted hand might be able to feel hot and cold, make a partial fist, and manipulate large objects. The team is trying to find a patient who would be able to deal emotionally with the limitations of the procedure, and who would be able to deal with living life with such a noticeable part of their body as not "their own."  | Transplanting hands has been tried before. In 1964, a patient underwent a transplant in an Ecuadoran hospital. The transplant was rejected after two weeks. But anti-rejection medications have made progress since then, and the doctors involved hope that if their transplant attempt is successful, the procedure could eventually become commonplace. | On this hour of Science Friday, join guest host Joanne Silberner for a discussion of the transplant operation, and a look at the importance of hands to the human species - the role they play in helping us develop language, advanced thought patterns, and more.
Guests:
Warren Breidenbach
Hand Surgeon
Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center
Louisville, KY
Frank Wilson
Author, "The Hand" (Pantheon)
Neurologist
Medical Director
Peter F. Ostwald Health Program for Performing Artists
University of California School of Medicine
San Francisco, CA
Books/Articles Discussed:
"The Hand : How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture," by Frank R. Wilson. Pantheon, 1998.
Related Links:
Hand Transplant info
Skeletal Hand Anatomy
Hand Musculature
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