PERTH, Australia-The recipient of the world's first modern hand transplant was reportedly in danger of losing the hand--19 months after receiving the new limb in a historic operation in France.
Reports were not detailed, but the Associated Press, Reuters news service, and the Sydney Morning Herald said on April 30 and May 1 that 49-year-old Clint Hallam was being treated at Perth's Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital for rejection of the hand. The news services said that other than to confirm that Mr. Hallam was undergoing treatment, hospital officials were reluctant to give further information, citing patient confidentiality.
Mr. Hallam lost his hand in a chain saw accident in a New Zealand jail in 1984, and he received his new right hand during a 13-hour operation at Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon, France, on September 23, 1998. The operation was led by surgeons Jean-Michel Dubernard of Lyon and Earl Owen of the Center for Microsurgery in Sydney, Australia.
In January 1999, a New Jersey man became the first recipient of a hand transplant in the United States. In January 2000, Drs. Dubernard and Owen performed a double hand and forearm transplant on a 33-year-old man whose arms were amputated following a 1996 accident involving a homemade rocket.
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