TOE THUMBS SKIN
TOE THUMBS FREE

The surgery costs $20,000 to $30,000 for surgeons’ fees, hospitalization and therapy, but accident insurance often covers much of the cost.īuncke’s team also performed 61 transplants in which smaller toes replaced fingers other than thumbs. Valauri said the transplanted toe often shrinks to a more acceptable size in about 18 months. Littler and Valauri agreed that patients who undergo toe-to-thumb transplants should be told they will suffer slight impairment of the donor foot, as well as cold sensitivity in the toe stump and new thumb. William Littler, said in a telephone interview. ″These chaps have done an awfully good job, and I have only the highest esteem for what they have been able to accomplish,″ a one-time critic, New York plastic surgeon Dr. Buncke performed the first such surgery in the United States in 1972. The first human transplant was done by Dr. Toes were used to replace missing fingers as early as 1900, but such transplants often failed or yielded poor results without modern microsurgery, in which tiny nerves and blood vessels from the toe are sutured to those in the thumb stump, Valauri said.īuncke performed the first microsurgical toe-to-thumb transplant on a monkey in 1964. ″If you have a choice of missing a thumb or a big toe, you’re better off missing the toe,″ because the thumb accounts for nearly half the hand’s ability to function, while the foot loses only some of its ″pushoff″ ability without a big toe, Valauri said. They said transplanted big toes make thumbs with better sensation, appearance and grip strength than those created by other surgeries for people whose crushed or severed thumbs couldn’t be reattached. Toe-to-thumb transplants have restored accident victims’ ability to grasp objects, tie their shoes, pop champagne corks and even thumbwrestle, Valauri, Buncke and their colleagues said Monday in a paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Harry Buncke’s surgical team at San Francisco’s Davies Medical Center succeeded in all 60 toe-to-thumb transplants it performed, and hundreds of such transplants elsewhere also had a high success rate, said Valauri, a plastic surgeon who works with Buncke.

TOE THUMBS SKIN

They advocate alternative operations, including moving the index finger to the thumb position while keeping nerves and blood vessels intact, or reconstructing the thumb using pieces of hip bone and skin from toes or other body parts.īut since 1972, Dr. Fredrick Valauri, who told a medical convention Monday that the controversial transplants should be considered safe and effective.Ĭritics have argued patients risk losing a toe besides the destroyed thumb if the operation fails. ″There are problems with them being a little bigger and leaving a defect on your foot, but those are very acceptable tradeoffs,″ said Dr.

TOE THUMBS FREE

Read Alex’s report here, and watch this video to learn more:Īiden’s story has drawn attention from media locally (watch WOOD-TV’s report here) and around the world, including India and the United Kingdom.įor more on Mary Free Bed’s Hand Therapy program, click here.LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Big toes may look a bit large when attached to the hand, but they make reliable replacements for thumbs destroyed in accidents, say doctors who performed 60 successful toe-to-thumb transplants. Greenville Daily News sports editor Alex Freeman wrote a story about Aiden, a multi-sport athlete, after he clinched the state title in skeet shooting.

“I want (people) to see that, yes, there are bumps in the road, there are hard times … but anything’s possible,” said Aiden, who’s named his new digit “Wilbur,” after the pig in the children’s novel, “Charlotte’s Web.” “It’s one of my little piggies.”

He spent months in Mary Free Bed’s Hand Therapy Program, working with occupational therapist Kelly Nye to strengthen his new thumb and restore as much function as possible. Four months after the accident, doctors at University of Michigan Hospital replaced the missing thumb by transplanting the index toe from his left foot. While he adapted and excelled without his thumb, Aiden decided to try a transplant. Unable to find it, doctors repaired the wound, and Aiden went about his life, getting ready to graduate from Carson City-Crystal High School and competing on its clay target team. Home / Thumbs up: Teen recovers from toe-to-thumb transplant with help from Mary Free Bed’s Hand Therapy Program Posted on DecemThumbs up: Teen recovers from toe-to-thumb transplant with help from Mary Free Bed’s Hand Therapy ProgramĪiden Adkins was using a woodworking saw to create a gift as a prom proposal to his girlfriend when he accidentally cut off his thumb.

Toe thumbs