TORONTO — Canada's first hand transplant has been successfully performed by a team of doctors in Toronto
The University Health Network — which operates four major hospitals in the city — says 18 surgeons attached a forearm and hand from a donor to a patient in a procedure that lasted about 14 hours.
The transplant recipient is a 49-year-old woman who had lost her arm below the elbow in an accident several years ago.
UHN says she is doing well and recovering from the procedure.
The surgery was led by Dr. Steven McCabe, director of the Toronto Western Hospital's hand and upper extremity transplant program.
He was part of a surgical team in Louisville, Ky., that performed the world's first successful hand transplant in 1999.
To date, over 110 hand transplants have taken place worldwide in more than a dozen countries.
