Volume 70 Number 3 May 2003	back to contents

¹Clinical Associate Professor of Orthopaedics and ³Fellow in Hand Surgery, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY; and ²Reconstructive Plastic and Hand Surgeon, Plastic Surgical Masters, Auckland, New Zealand.

Address correspondence to Michael R. Hausman, M.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Orthopaedics, Box 1188, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One East 100th Street, New York, NY 10029.

Presented at the Issues in Medical Ethics 1999 Conference at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY on December 10, 1999. This paper has been updated as of December 2002.

ABSTRACT

The hand is a very special organ, with unique functions and versatility in the human body. Our hands are pivotal in manipulating our environment, receiving feedback from our surroundings and communicating our unspoken words by gestures. Thus, the loss of a hand is a tragic, disfiguring event with profound personal, vocational, financial and social implications. Transplantation of life-saving solid organs is now widely accepted in both the medical and lay communities. The technical skills and prerequisites for hand transplantation have been honed over recent decades, culminating in the recent commencement of hand transplantation in several centers around the world. However, unlike life-saving solid organ transplantation, hand transplantation has been greeted with less enthusiasm in the professional community because it is not yet clear what the long-term risks-to-benefits ratio is. The scientific background, and the potential risks, benefits, and ethical aspects of this procedure are discussed. Successful transplantation to amputees of fully integrated and functional hands is a worthy goal. Hopefully, at some point in the future, hand transplantation will become another safe and viable option for amputees to consider.

KEY WORDS

Transplant, ethics, hand, hand transplant.

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