Chinese man's severed hand grafted to leg for a month

Doctors in China have successfully attached a man's severed hand to his arm after it was grafted on to his leg for more than a month to keep it alive.

The man, surnamed Zhou, from central China's Hunan Province, now has slight movement of his fingers but he still needs further rehabilitation. Zhou lost his left hand in a work accident in the city of Xiangtan.
After visiting a local hospital, he was transferred to Xiangya Hospital in Changsha.

Surgeons at the hospital could not reattach the hand straight away. His arm was badly hurt and the nerves and tendons needed time to heal, state run 'Xinhua' news agency reported. "In normal temperatures, a severed finger should resume blood supply within 10 hours. The time is even shorter for a separated limb," said Tang Juyu, head of the hand microsurgery department of Xiangya Hospital.

"If it falls short of blood for long, the tissues dies and it would be impossible to get it back," he said. The surgeons chose to graft the severed hand to his ankle to ensure blood supply and kept it alive there for more than a month. They then restored the hand to its original limb in a 10-hour surgery.