Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A rare surgery performed at the University of Kansas Hospital may help a 19-year-old man have better use of a prosthetic after his arm was amputated.

The 10-hour procedure performed Tuesday involved amputating the left arm of a southwest Missouri man who had bone cancer.

During the amputation, surgeons saved as many of the man's nerves as possible and implanted them in the man's chest. Surgeons say that will allow the man to have better control of his prosthetic arm.

Dr. Todd Kuiken is director at the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. He developed the procedure and witnessed the operation.

Only 35 of these procedures, called targeted muscle reinnervation, have been done worldwide. The surgery performed at the University of Kansas Hospital was the first performed on a cancer patient, rather than a trauma patient.