| Date: 07/26/2010 Contact: Enrique Rivero |
(Note to editors: DVDs with soundbites and animation are available through media officers.) The UCLA Health System has launched the new UCLA Hand Transplantation Program, the first of its kind on the West Coast and only the fourth such center in the United States. The program will help those who have suffered the traumatic loss of a hand or forearm and allow them to regain function and improve their quality of life. Qualified candidates are now being sought for a clinical study of the procedure. "Over the past decade, the exciting field of hand transplantation has resulted in excellent outcomes for patients, and we are excited to bring this program to UCLA," said Dr. Kodi Azari, surgical director of the hand transplantation program and an associate professor in the UCLA Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the UCLA Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. The first hand transplant was performed in 1998 in France, with the United States following suit the next year. To date, nine patients have received hand transplants in the United States; two of these surgeries were double hand transplants. Azari was one of the lead surgeons on five of these successful hand transplants, including the first double hand transplant and the first arm transplant. "Many patients who have lost one or both hands find that prosthetic devices are not enough to help them get back the life they had enjoyed previously," said Azari, who came to UCLA in November 2008 from the University of Pittsburgh. "In these cases, hand transplantation can offer a unique opportunity to regain dynamic function and the feel of a real human hand." The new program is a partnership between UCLA's transplantation services and its hand surgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, orthopaedic surgery, psychiatry, pathology, anesthesia, internal medicine, radiology, neurology, ethics and rehabilitation services. Estimates from the 1996 National Health Interview Survey indicate that one in 400 civilian Americans is missing an upper limb. This does not take into account the number of U.S. military personnel missing hands or forearms due to wartime injuries. In addition to helping civilian patients who have suffered the loss of a hand, the UCLA Hand Transplantation Program can also serve military personnel who have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new program complements UCLA's Operation Mend program, which offers facial reconstructive surgery to America's wounded warriors. "The new hand transplantation program will build a bridge between reconstructive surgery and our vast experience in transplantation medicine," said Dr. Sue McDiarmid, a professor of pediatrics and surgery and medical director of the pediatric liver transplantation and hand transplantation programs at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Both will benefit the other in this new endeavor in unique ways." Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, UCLA's executive chair of surgery and chief of the division of liver and pancreas transplantation division, and the administration of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center immediately recognized the value of this new program for patients who might benefit from the clinical trial. "We are at the beginning of a new frontier," Busuttil said. "Solid organ transplants are now routinely performed to save patients' lives. Now we'll be performing composite tissue transplants to enhance their quality of life." According to Azari, the purpose of the clinical trial is to confirm that the surgical techniques already established in hand transplantation are successful, to study the return of function in transplanted hands, and to study the effectiveness and safety of the anti-rejection drugs that will be necessary to ensure that the grafts are accepted by the recipient's body. Eligibility criteria for the hand transplantation study include:
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