A 26-year-old mother became the first hand transplant recipient on the western U.S., it was reported.
A 17-member surgical team at Ronald Reagan UCLA medical Center performed the 14 hour operation, attaching tendons, blood vessels and nerves.
The patient, from Northern California, had lost her hand in a traffic accident 5 years ago.
"I am ecstatic with the results — a little tired, but ecstatic," lead surgeon Dr. Kodi Azari, surgical director of the UCLA Hand Transplant Program, said in a press release.
The patient is currently recovering. According to NBCLA's Dr. Bruce Hensel, it's hard to predict how a transplanted hand will do.
"It may be fully functional, partly functional or hardly functional at all. There is also a small possibility that the hand could get infected or scar, preventing full use," Dr. Hensel said. "However, when experienced surgeons perform the operation there is a good chance that it will work well; especially in one of its most important functions; grasping with thumb and forefinger and pinky. As time goes on, the likelihood of infections and scarring decrease and the chance of success increases."
The hand-transplant program was created at UCLA last July, where experts put out a call for people willing to take part in a clinical study of the procedure.
According to the university, nine people have received hand transplants in the United States since 1999.
The UCLA program is only the fourth of its type in the nation.
