Man Gets Double-Hand Transplant

Man Gets Double-Hand Transplant
The Boston Globe reports that Richard Mangino of Revere, Massachusetts, underwent a 12-hour operation last week in which a transplant team gave the forearms and hands of an anonymous donor. Mangino had his own lower arm amputee with his legs when a blood infection threatened to kill him in 2002.


The amputations took Mangino dramatic adjustments in the day to day life, but also marked the beginning of his artistic expression on the canvas. Mangino painted with a brush held in the prosthesis in his left arm.

Mangino was the third successful operation of double hand transplant procedure in the country so far. Last year, Chris Pollock of Pennsylvania, who had lost both hands in a farming accident, appeared on "Good Morning America" ​​to discuss the double hand transplant he received in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The first double-hand transplant recipient was Jeff Kepner of Georgia, which in May 2009 also underwent surgery at UPMC.

Brigham and Women's Hospital in the headlines recently for face transplant surgery performed there. In June, the hospital announced it had achieved in the face transplant in 57 years, Charla Nash, who had lost much of his face and hands when a chimpanzee attacked him. Doctors also tried a double hand transplant, but pneumonia and kidney failure after surgery obstructed circulation and transplanted hands had to be removed.

Last April, the hospital announced it had made a face transplant in the n Mitch Hunter, 30, of Indiana, whose face had been disfigured in an accident in 2001. Surgeons also gave 25 years of age, Wiens Dallas Fort Worth, Texas, a new face. Wiens, a construction worker, had suffered severe burns to the head before the year when the jib crane he was operating fell into a nearby power line.

The hospital has also performed a partial face transplant on a man who fell into the first side rail in a subway electrified.