By IANS,
Kolkata: In a surgery said to be rare, a three-member team of city doctors has successfully replanted the right thumb of a four-year-old boy.
The operation was conducted at a city-based premier healthcare unit, Columbia Asia Hospital, May 31 this year.
“The right thumb of the boy (name not disclosed by the hospital authority) was amputated in an automatic elevator. He was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition,” said Manish Mukul Ghosh, a consultant plastic and micro-vascular reconstructive surgeon who spearheaded the medical team for carrying out the transplantation.
“But fortunately, the amputated thumb was preserved in a refrigerator by one of the domestic helps in the patient’s house and thereby the kid got his finger back after four operations in our hospital.
“I think this child is probably the youngest reported patient with a successful limb replant in the city,” Ghosh said, adding all the four surgeries taken together cost around Rs.170,000 inclusive of hospital charges. Ghosh has conducted over 100 such surgeries.
“The thumb circulation was re-established after total eight hours of surgery and we expect he will be able to function with the hand shortly after one more operation,” he said.