Hand Transplant Performed

Using the most advanced techniques in microsurgery, doctors performed a rare operation on Thursday, transplanting a hand and forearm. CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton reports on an operation that gives hope to people with severed limbs.

The operation was performed at one of the world's leading transplant centers, the Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon, France.

Australian businessman Clint Hallam has been dreaming of holding his wife and four children and playing the piano since an accident took his right hand fourteen years ago. An attempt to reattach it failed. Now he hopes to make medical history.

"It is as major a breakthrough as the first heart transplant" Hallam says.

"There is nothing better than to offer the hand of help to another individual" says Dr. Earl Owen of Australia, one of the microsurgeons on the transplant team.

The procedure involves attaching the new limb at the midpoint of the forearm, and requires doctors to attach all the arteries, veins, nerves, tendons, muscles and the skin.

An international team of surgeons had been rehearsing for days, knowing that if successful, it would be the first time a human limb has been transplanted.

An anonymous donor was found on Wednesday, and the transplant team quickly assembled for the 13-hour operation. Afterwards, Dr. Owen was exhausted, but hopeful. "I don't know what will happen. I can't predict it because it's the first one" he says.

It will be weeks before doctors know whether the transplant has been successful. It may take up to a year and a half before they know whether the nerves have regenerated down to the finger tips and the hand is fully functional. If it works, it will give hope to all amputees, and perhaps even to people born with congenital defects.

The greatest risk comes after the operation.

"The problem is that the drugs you need to use to prevent rejection can be life threatening" says Dr. Warren Breidenbach, a surgeon from Kentucky's University of Louisville Medical Center, who is planning a perform a similar procedure.

The anti-rejection medication suppresses the immune system to keep the body from destroying the foreign tissue, leaving the body more vulnerable to other diseases.

Hand transplants have been attempted before, but none have been successful. In the few attempts, patients' bodies have rejected the new limb. Other obstacles have been the failure of nerves to regenerate.

The operation was the result of recent advances in microsurgery and transplant techniques. Doctors now assess the chances of long-term success at 50-50.

Reported By Tom Fenton