<h5>What is a hand transplant?</h5>  <p>When someone has lost one or both of their hands due to an accident or illness, most often they have to go through life without their hands. In a few cases, a person has the option of getting a hand transplant. </p>
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This option becomes available if another person nearby has become brain-dead and their organs or other body parts are available for donation. Though it’s a sad circumstance, the silver lining is that a person’s death rescues another person from a life of extreme pain and difficulty.
</p> <h5>Why are hand transplants extremely difficult?</h5>  <p>A hand transplant is an extremely difficult operation and is performed in a small number of places around the world. To date, only about a hundred and thirty hand transplants have been performed in the whole world. </p>
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<p>It’s so hard because our hands are immensely complex structures. Fine threads of nerves, tendons and ligaments are intertwined with each other to enable us to do the many different and difficult things we do with our hands.</p>
<p>Many times hand transplants fail because our immune system is designed to reject any foreign object entering or being attached to our bodies. So, hand transplant patients have to take medication for their entire lives to ensure that their immune systems are not making their bodies reject their new hands.
</p> <h5>Why was Steven Gallagher’s hand transplant a rare case?</h5>  <p>Steven Gallagher is a forty-eight-year-old man from the United Kingdom. His hand transplant is the first one of its kind in the entire world. That’s because Gallagher suffers from a rare disease called scleroderma. Seven years ago, his fingers started curling in until his hands became like fists permanently. He lost the use of them completely and was in excruciating pain all the time.</p>
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When a doctor first suggested a double hand transplant (that is getting both hands transplanted), Gallagher laughed. He thought it was a space-age concept. After giving it some thought, he realised he might lose his hands soon anyway and decided to go ahead with the surgery.</p> <h5>How did the surgery go?</h5>  <p>Steven Gallagher’s operation happened in December 2021 and lasted for twelve hours. A team of thirty doctors, nurses and other health professionals from different branches of medicine came together to perform the surgery. They amputated his diseased hands and replaced them with healthy donor hands.</p>
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When Gallagher woke up, he was surprised to find he could move his hands. The best part - the constant pain that affected his hands was completely gone.
</p> <h5>Can Steven Gallagher use his hands fully now?</h5>  <p>Nope. In the five months since his operation, Steven Gallagher’s hands have adjusted well to his body. After a lot of post-operation therapy and care, he is able to do little things with them, like petting his dog and drinking a glass of water. They may not seem much to you and me, but it brings him immense joy to be able to do these things.</p>
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Gallagher is hopeful that someday soon he’ll be able to have some kind of a job. Performing this transplant successfully has been an amazing learning experience for doctors. They are full of hope that they will do an even better job the next time they have to do something like this!
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Recently doctors in the UK pulled off the world’s rarest double hand transplant. Let’s find out more about this achievement.


World's Rarest Double Hand Transplant Successful

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World's Rarest Double Hand Transplant Successful

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