CAIRO: A team of doctor's at Akdeniz University Hospital, in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya, has attempted the world's first triple limb transplant. They have attached two arms and one leg to a 34-year-old man, as well as transplanting the face of the same donor onto another patient. This would therefore also be Turkey's first face transplant. “Today could be a day of many firsts for the medical world,” the Anadolu Agency quoted Dr. Zafer Aydin as saying. “We are hoping that the operation is a success and that it is a world first,” said Aydin, head of the hospital's organ transplant unit, “Two arms and a leg have never been transplanted on one patient until today.” Atilla Kavdir, the 34-year-old receiving the limbs, was 11 when he struck power lines near his home with an iron bar to scare away pigeons and received an electric shock, losing his arms and right leg. The teenage recipient of the first face transplant ever attempted in Turkey was burned in a house fire as a baby. The limbs and the face became available early on Saturday and the hospital began the operation at 3:15 a.m., Anadolu said. Over a dozen face transplants have been performed around the world, the first being carried out on a French woman in November 2005 after she had been attacked by her dog. The first face transplant in the U.S. was in December 2008. The world's first double arm transplant was in Germany in 2008, while the first double leg transplant took place in Spain in July 2011. This has been the first triple transplant ever attempted. BM
