Hand Transplant Program
Emory's Hand Transplant Program is part of the Emory Transplant Center, located in Atlanta, Georgia. The hand transplant program was established by Linda Cendales, MD to evaluate hand transplantation as a therapeutic option after loss of one or both hands. Dr. Cendales is the only transplant surgeon in the U.S. trained in both hand microsugery and hand transplantation.
In addition to the clinical study of hand transplantation, Dr. Cendales has established a comprehensive hand transplant center at Emory to study Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA), or the transplantation of multiple tissues (skin, muscle, bone, cartilage, nerve, tendon, vessel) as a collective functional unit. VCA continues to advance by leaps and bounds, with recent reports from around the world of transplants involving donors' faces, knees, trachea and even a uterus, performed in 2000 in Saudi Arabia.
Emory's hand transplant center is currently open to those who have lost one or both hands below the elbow and are interested in a potential hand transplant. Hand transplantation, like other forms of organ transplantation, is a major surgical procedure that requires lifelong medication to prevent rejection of the transplanted hand(s). For more information about this clinical research study, please visit clinicaltrials.gov.
Georgia's First Hand Transplant Procedure
In 1999, Dr. Linda Cendales helped organize the team that performed the first U.S. hand transplant in Louisville, Kentucky. After establishing the hand transplant center at Emory, Dr. Cendales and her team performed Georgia's first hand transplant procedure (the 14th procedure in the U.S.) on March 12, 2011, a 19-hour procedure for a 21-year-old student out of Florida whose arm was amputated as an infant due to Kawasaki Disease.
