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Doctors complete first bilateral hand transplant on 8-year-old

The 8-year-old lost both hands and feet to infection when he was 2

By Stephen Feller
Doctors prepared for 18 months before performing the 40-doctor, 10-hour transplant surgery. YouTube screenshot
Doctors prepared for 18 months before performing the 40-doctor, 10-hour transplant surgery. YouTube screenshot

PHILADELPHIA, July 29 (UPI) -- Doctors in Philadelphia completed the first pediatric double hand transplant on an 8-year-old boy who'd had his hands and feet amputated, in addition to a kidney transplant, after a serious infection when he was 2.

A 40-member medical team spent 10 hours on the intricate surgery, which will keep Zion Harvey recovering at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for several weeks before his rehabilitation continues when he and his mother return to their home in Baltimore.

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"This surgery was the result of years of training, followed by months of planning and preparation by a remarkable team," said Dr. L. Scott Levin, a professor of surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in a press release. "The success of Penn's first bilateral hand transplant on an adult, performed in 2011, gave us a foundation to adapt the intricate techniques and coordinated plans required to perform this type of complex procedure on a child.

Zion had an infection at 2-years-old that required doctors to amputate his hands and feet -- he now has prosthetics -- and a recurrence of the same infection forced a kidney transplant when he was 4, his mother, Patti Ray, told CBS News.

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Doctors said Zion was a candidate for the surgery, which was performed on an adult for the first time in 2011 and had never been done on a child before, because of anti-rejection drugs he has been taking since his kidney transplant.

The 40-person surgical team was split in four, with a team responsible for each of the donor's limbs and Zion's limbs. Doctors first attached forearm bones using steel plates and screws. Next, arteries and veins were reconnected and, once blood flow through the new limbs had been established, doctors went about repaired and rejoined muscles, tendons and nerves for each new hand.

After a few more weeks spent recovering and going through rehabilitation in Philadelphia, doctors said Zion and his mother will go back to Baltimore where his progress will be tracked monthly.

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