A Patient’s Hand Transplants Changing Color Make Science News
Arul Horizon/Amrita Institute
Shreya Siddanagowder shocked doctorss when her slightly darker hand transplants changed to match the color of her natural skin.
In 2017, Shreya Siddanagowda underwent an intensive operation to get hand transplants. The skin on the transplant limbs had a darker color than her natural skin tone, but Siddanagowda didn’t mind, so long as her new arms were functional.
But, unexpectedly, the darker tone of her transplant limbs began to change. Now, Siddanagowda’s new arms nearly perfectly match her natural skin color.
“I don’t know how the transformation occurred. But it feels like my own hands now,” Siddanagowda said of the transformation. The arms were donated by the family of a 20-year-old male college student named Sachin, who was killed in a bike accident. The transplant procedure was Asia’s first inter-gender hand transplant.
Shreya Siddanagowda’s hand transplant surgery lasted over 13 hours. It involved a team of 20 surgeons as well as a separate anesthesia team.
The surgeons attached the donor’s limbs to Siddanagowda’s body by the bone, first. Then, the arteries, veins, and tendons were fused together before the skin from the limbs was stitched to Siddanagowda’s upper limb.
Sachin’s donated arms and hands were thicker male arms and looked bulky on Siddanagowda’s petite frame in the beginning. But then, her new arms became more slender during her year-long post-surgery physiotherapy. Her mother noticed, too, that her new fingers became leaner and longer.
Less than 100 arm transplants have been performed in the world. Siddanagowda’s case of having her transplants change to match the rest of her body is among the first of its kind, doctors said.
It’s still unclear what caused the transplant limbs to adapt to match Siddanagowda’s natural skin, but her doctors have one possible theory. They believe the change may be related to her body’s melanin cells. The melanin cells in our body produce the natural pigmentation of our skin.
“In a year or so, the lymphatic channel between the donor’s hand and the host’s body opens up completely to allow the flow of fluids,” hypothesized Mohit Sharma, who was part of Siddanagowda’s surgery team at India’s Amrita Institute. “It is possible the melanin-producing cells slowly replaced the donor’s cells. And that led to the change.”
However, with such a small sample population size, doctors require further studies to determine the root cause of the surprising transplant transformation. While there has yet to be a conclusive explanation to Siddanagowda’s case, her happy story was one of the most remarkable science articles of the year.
Looking back through the top science articles of the year, there was certainly no shortage of scientific breakthroughs. Who knows what strange and wonderful science articles await us in 2021?
Enjoyed this round-up of the year’s top science news? Take a look at the other scientific marvels that didn’t make the cut. Then, check out more science-based stories that you probably didn’t know about.
