Boston Hospital to be First to Provide Hand Transplants for Children

A Boston hospital will be the first to provide hand transplants to children once a two-year review by an ethics committee is completed.

After having done over 70 hands and at least 20 face transplants in adults, doctors said they believed that the operations were now safer for children in some cases.

"We feel that this is justifiable," Dr Amir Taghinia said of the pediatric hand program. "Children will potentially benefit even more from this procedure than adults" because they have quicker healing and re-growing chances and have more problems from prosthetic hands, he explained.

So far there has been only one hand transplant done on a child. In 2000, a Malaysian baby had a hand transplant.

Some doctors said the major hurdle in transplants among children is the side-effects of the drugs that can cause cancer later in life. But a set of doctors said they believe that the transplants also have advantages in some cases. "We understand so much more about immune suppression that it's less of a risk to put children on it," Dr Simon Horslen, medical director of the liver and intestine transplant program at Seattle Children's Hospital, told Fox news. "This is never going to be done as an emergency procedure, so the families will have plenty of opportunity to weigh the options."

He further said that the in case of any rejections the transplanted hand can be removed without causing any harm to the child.

On a similar note, Dr William Harmon, medical director for hand and kidney transplants at the Seattle Hospital said that 96 to 97 percent of transplant patients are alive five years after the surgery.

Initially, Boston hospital will operate only on children of 10 years or older for the transplant and it will cover the operation cost and after care for the first three months.

The hospital will consider children who have lost both hands or have lost a hand in an accident.