Today's Edition
TURIN (REUTERS)
A man may regain the use of his hand, left paralysed by a severe road accident, thanks to a pioneering nerve transfer operation from his partly amputated leg, doctors in northern Italy said.
Surgeons at Turin City Hospital transferred part of the man’s sciatic nerve, which controlled the movement of his amputated foot, to his brachial plexus, the network of nerves that connect the spinal cord to the shoulder, arm and hand.
“It’s the first time that someone transfers a component of the sciatic nerve to the brachial plexus”, Paolo Titolo, one of the surgeons who performed the operation, said in an interview with Reuters.
Marcello Gaviglio, a 55-year-old healthcare worker had to have half his left leg amputated after he was hit by a motor-bike five months ago while travelling to work on his moped. He suffered serious injuries to his brachial plexus as well as his leg, leaving him unable to use either of his hands. Because the part of the sciatic nerve that controlled his left foot was no longer needed, it could be transferred to the shoulder area in the operation carried out on December 21, potentially restoring the mobility to one of his hands.
Nerve transfer surgery is not new, but it has not previously involved moving a nerve that normally controls the foot to an area that controls the hand.
