A key speaker from the SRMRC’s recent gathering of the UK’s top transplant surgeons has performed the country’s first hand replacement operation.
Professor Simon Kay spoke at the Vascularised Composite Allotransplantation Symposium in October, an event which also featured Professor WP Andrew Lee, the surgeon who led the first double hand transplant operation in the United States.
At the event, Prof Kay discussed the many challenges of hand transplantation, including the lifelong need for the patient to use drugs which suppress the immune system to prevent the body rejecting the new hand.
Prof Kay and his team at the Leeds General Infirmary replaced the hand of Mark Cahill, 51, who had been unable to use his right hand after it was affected by gout.
