Turkish surgeons attempt quadruple limb transplant on amputee
Prosthetic legs and arms await new amputees at a Red Cross orthopedic center in Kabul, Afghanistan on September 10, 2011.
The world's first quadruple limb transplant has reportedly been carried out on a man whose legs and arms were amputated when he was 13.
More than 50 Turkish doctors were involved in the 20-hour operation to attach two arms and two legs to 27-year-old Sevket Cavdar, Britain's Daily Mail reported.
The paper quoted surgeon Serdar Nasir as saying after the operation: "We have good results but maybe we will lose all of the limbs.
"Maybe [we'll] lose only one or two, we have to wait, but I think for now we have good results."
Head physician Dr Murat Tuncer, meantime, told the Anatolia news agency — cited by Agence France-Presse — that: "In such a big organ transplant… more than 50 percent of the (patient's) body has changed.
"The blood and plasma defusion are still continuing for our patient to overcome the critical next 24 hours."
Tuncer had appealed for blood donations to overcome any complications following the surgery at Hacettepe University Hospital in Ankara, the Turkish capital.
Sky News quoted the patient's brother-in-law Cengiz Cavdar, meantime, as saying: "[He] has only been seeing himself walking in his dreams. We hope that he will be able to walk one day in real life.
"This is just the beginning. He always wanted to become a driver one day."
The operation comes after a failed triple limb transplant attempt in the southern city of Antalya, Australia's NineMSN website reported.
In that operation, doctors transplanted a leg and two arms. However, they were forced to remove the leg due to tissue incompatibility.
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