Hyderabad:

A carpenter’s long toe has begun functioning as a thumb after doctors at a city-based private hospital performed a rare transplant to replace the  missing vital digit.

Shyamsundar, 26, a carpenter from Karimnagar district, lost the thumb on his right hand last year in September while working on a wood-cutting machine in Dubai. The initial treatment was done by doctors at a Dubaihospital who amputated the critically-damaged thumb and advised Shyamsundar to go in for the thumb reconstruction surgery that would restore mobility to his hand.

Shyamsundar, however, decided to fly back to India instead whereupon he approached Secunderabad’s Yashoda Hospital where a six-hour surgery was performed on him by a team of doctors on November 4.

“After the accident, I could not grip anything with my right hand. I thought it had put an end to my career. But, after the surgery, I am able to write, eat and hold things,” Shyamsundar said at a news conference on Saturday. And, although his foot – missing a toe following the transplant – might ache, he said that the thumb was more important to him. Shyamsundar is now set to return to Dubai, where he has been working for the last four years, given that he has regained much of the use of his right hand. “I will request the company to place me in the administrative wing until I recover completely,” he said. Surgeons said that while losing a toe has little effect on a person’s ability to walk or run, loss of a thumb nearly incapacitates hand functionality. Doctors said that Shyamsundar will regain full use of his hand in about three months. “This new thumb now has movement and will have sensation and nail growth in a few weeks,” said Dr K Murali Mohan Reddy, the hand and reconstructive micro-surgeon who led the surgery.

“About six weeks after the surgery, Shyamsundar gained functional recovery,” said Dr Reddy who performed the operation along with plastic surgeon Dr T Shashikanth. He added that although such injuries were common among carpenters and workers at hardware factories, few were aware of this reconstructive surgery.

This procedure was first performed at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences ( Nims) in 1990. However, due to poor awareness, such surgeries are rarely performed.

source: http://www.TimesofIndia.Indiatimes.com / Home> City> Hyderabad / TNN / March 18th, 2012