The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Thumb reattached in city hospital

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 28, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Thumb reattached in city hospital

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, APRIL 27. In a four-hour operation that involved advanced microsurgery techniques, the thumb of a boy was reattached at the city-based Ganga Hospital.

A press release from the hospital's Head of the Department of Plastic, Hand and Microsurgery, S. Rajasabapathy, said in a release that the boy, Ram (11), was chopping open a tender coconut at his native village in Kerala when the sickle sliced through his left thumb and the coconut shell.

The boy and his uncle recovered the sliced piece and rushed to the nearest doctor, who referred them to the Ganga Hospital.

With the amputated piece measuring less than two cm, the size of the artery and vein was less than 0.5 mm.

Consequently, it required the supra micro surgical skills for replant. Dr. Rajasabapathy said: "We attached one artery and one vein. Fixation of the bone was done with specially made stainless steel wire. The difficulty lay in identified the tiny blood vessels. To overcome this, we have developed a new technique under which the thumb top was anchored on top of a plastic background to make handling of the amputated part easier and eliminate damage to tiny structures in it."

A six-member team of surgeons, headed by Dr. Rajasabapathy, and two anaesthetists performed the surgery successfully, the release said.

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