Major Limb Replantation in Upper Extremities: A Single Surgeon

Human’s hands help us to explore our living environment and to finish most of our works.  Hence, our hands are prone to be injured.  When facing a severe injury, such as a major limb amputation, our primary goal is to save the amputated limb and to restore this hand’s function as far as possible.  The purpose of this paper is to report a single surgeon’s experience in major limb replantation and share the surgical results.  

From January 2009 to April 2014, there were 6 patients, each of whom had an upper limb amputation, received urgent upper limb replantation.  According to the severity of limb amputation wound, these replantation surgeries were carried out with various reconstructive procedures. The demographic data of patients were summarized, and surgical results of replantation were analyzed.

All the replanted limbs were survive well. However, varying degrees of functional regain were noticed during follow-up period.  Generally speaking, the more proximal amputation, the poor functional regain after surgery.  The clinical pictures and surgical results are to be presented.

With pay attention to public safety issue, major limb amputation is a rare but severe injury.  Surgical treatment of a major limb amputation, our primary goal is to save the amputated limb and to restore this hand’s function as far as possible.  However, functional recovery is not always satisfied, which depend on proximity and severity of the injury.  On the other hands, progression in upper limb prosthesis compete with surgical replantation result.  Decision about upper limb replantation or not should be justified. 

Keywords: Replantation, Major Limb, Upper Extremity