Search is on for UK's first hand transplant patient

The Mail | Sadie Whitelocks

Volunteers are being called forward for pioneering surgery about to be launched in the UK.

NHS doctors are gearing up for the country's first hand transplant which is expected to take place within a year.

Plastic surgeons across the country have been asked to identify adult patients who could undergo the new procedure at Leeds General Infirmary.

The world's first hand transplant was carried out in France in 1998 on 45-year-old Clint Hallam, but it will be the first time the surgery has been performed in Britain.

The operation will be led by Professor Simon Kay. He said: 'Leeds is extremely well placed to offer this new type of transplant surgery as we already have the expertise and facilities in place.

'We are one of the best-known microsurgery units in Europe and the principles of transplanting a hand and lower limb are exactly the same as the work we already do to reattach an existing hand or limb when it is severed in an accident.'

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