He regained the use of his paralyzed hand through the nerves of a foot: the surgery was performed in Turin in the Cto hospital "for the first time in the world" according to what the City of Health reports.
The patient is a 55-year-old social health worker who, after a road accident, had suffered the amputation of half of his left leg and a complete lesion of the brachial plexus of his left arm. The procedure followed by the doctors involved transferring a portion of the sciatic nerve to the upper part of the body.
Now the patient will be able to gradually learn to control the use of his hand . The surgery lasted twelve hours .
«The procedure - they explain to Città della Salute - has roots in four years of intensive research, culminating with the publication in a prestigious international scientific journal Injury and approval by the Ethics Committee of Città della Salute for clinical application. The focus of the surgery is the transposition of a component of the sciatic nerve, the peroneal part, which normally controls the dorsiflexion of the foot, but which was unused due to the amputation of the leg. This targeted nerve transfer from the amputated leg to the paralyzed arm had the aim of reinnervating the damaged brachial plexus, paving the way for functional reactivation."
(Unioneonline/D)
