New Delhi (Sputnik) — A ten-year-old Indian student who was partially amputated in an accident has been given a new lease on life after doctors conducted a rare ten hour-long surgery to make him capable of holding a pen again. A team of doctors in a Delhi hospital has restored the boy's thumb and index finger with a graft taken from his toes.
To restore the hand's function on the child's right hand, the big toe and second toe were reconstructed as a thumb and index finger.
"My son's keenness to resume studies and hold a pen made me bring him to Safdarjung hospital around seven months ago and the doctors started planning the reconstruction of his fingers from toes in order to make Virendra able to write again," the boy's father said.
Birendra had burnt his hands, arms, chest, and abdomen when he accidentally caught hold of an immersion rod used to heat water.
"Initially (three years ago), all we could do was remove the gangrenous tissue, because at that time saving his life was paramount. It took one-and-a-half years and several chest and abdomen surgeries for Birendra to recover," head of the surgery team Dr. Rakesh Kain said.
The surgery required the doctors to extract the big toe and the toe adjacent to it along with the arteries, veins, nerves, and tendons.
"If the implant is not extracted properly, then establishing proper blood supply would not be possible. And, without the tendons, there would be no upward and downward movement in the thumb making it useless," Dr. Kain added.
The Safdarjung hospital authorities, after the successful surgery, have announced that they are now starting a program for implanting hands from brain-dead donors to such patients. This would be of great benefit to disabled patients.
