Cross-hand replantation done at Chennai's Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital for first time

CHENNAI: The Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital has successfully performed a cross-hand replantation, one of the rarest reconstructive microsurgical procedures in the world. This is the first-ever cross-hand replantation done in a government hospital and the second reported in India, said a release. The patient, a 28-year-old migrant labourer from Bihar, suffered injuries to both upper limbs in a train accident near Park railway station on September 26. He arrived at RGGGH with amputation of the left arm near the shoulder, which was too crushed to be replanted, and a severely damaged right hand with loss of all fingers. Since the patient faced loss of both upper limbs, under the guidance of Dean Shantharaman, doctors decided to perform a cross-hand replantation, attaching the amputated left hand to the right forearm stump to restore at least one functional upper limb. The 10-hour marathon surgery involved meticulous skeletal fixation, tendon reconstruction and microsurgical repair of arteries, veins and nerves. After re-establishing arterial continuity, immediate blood flow was observed in the replanted hand, confirming successful revascularisation.