Turkey: quadruple limb transplant fails
A 27-year-old Turkish man who underwent the world’s first would-be quadruple limb transplant died Monday, hours after the limbs were removed due to metabolic failure, the hospital said.
Hacettepe University said doctors had to remove two arms and two legs that were transplanted on Sevket Cavdar Friday night because of a serious metabolic disorder and tissue incompatibility.
He had lost his arms and legs in 1998 when he was accidentally electrocuted. Doctors first removed one attached leg on Sunday and they were forced to take all three other limbs on Monday.
“Metabolic imbalance has claimed the life of our patient despite all our efforts,” the Ankara-based hospital said in a written statement on Monday evening.
The hospital expressed sorrow and said 200 doctors struggled to keep him alive for more than 90 hours.
Murat Tuncer, the head physician of Hacettepe, on Saturday had called for blood donations to overcome possible complications following the 20-hour operation. The Turkish Red Crescent, the Muslim equivalent of Red Cross, said it
has dispatched hundreds of bloods units from around the country.
The operation followed a failed triple limb transplant two months ago at another hospital in the southern city of Antalya. The doctors there were forced to remove a leg from a patient also due to tissue incompatibility. The same patient also received two arms.
Turkey performs world’s first quadruple limb transplant
Sun Feb 26, 2012 7:8AM GMT
For the first time in the world, Turkish surgeons have successfully managed to perform the world’s first quadruple limb transplant on a young man.
During a 20-hour operation, a team including more than 50 doctors at Hacettepe University Hospital in Ankara attached two arms and two legs to 27-year-old Sevket Cavdar.
“We have good results but maybe we will lose all of the limbs,” said surgeon Serdar Nasir. “Maybe (we’ll) lose only one or two, we have to wait, but I think for now we have good results.”
“In such a big organ transplant… more than 50 percent of the (patient’s) body has changed,” Professor Murat Tuncer, rector of Ankara’s Hacettepe University, told Anatolia.
“The blood and plasma defusion are still continuing for our patient to overcome the critical next 24 hours,” he added.
The world’s first double arm transplant was performed in Germany in 2008, while the first double leg transplant took place in Spain in 2011.
The record-breaking quadruple transplant in Turkey was carried out two months after a failed triple organ transplant performed at Akdeniz University Hospital in the southern city of Antalya.
The team had to remove a transplanted leg after it was rejected due to tissue incompatibility.
However, the Antalya team led by Dr. Omer Ozkan has the credit of the country’s first face transplant and the world’s first successful transplant of uterus.
SJM/MA/
Hacettepe, meanwhile, said another patient who received a face transplant on Friday was in stable condition. It was the second such operation in Turkey this year. The previous face transplant was carried out by the hospital in Antalya two months ago.
###
By SELCAN HACAOGLU Associated Press
ANKARA, Turkey