Medical Reattachment Procedure

The recent Patiala incident involving the police and the Nihang sect members had resulted in a cop’s hand being cut off. The doctors at Chandigarh’s PGIMER were able to replant the hand through a reattachment procedure.

Replantation

The term replantation or reattachment is defined as ‘the surgical reattachment of a body part, only like finger, that has been completely cut from a person’s body’ and is performed in case of traumatic amputation. Amputated parts like hands, fingers, toes, feet, forearms, ears, scalp, legs, tongue, etc. have been replanted in the past successfully.

Anastomosis

The term anastomosis refers to connection between two branches of a biological system such as blood vessel. It connects two divergent structures. It is also the process of conjoining the parts like bones, muscles, nerves and tendons. In the Patiala case, the anastomosis of radial and ulnar arteries, accompanying nerves and the dorsal vein resulted in the hand receiving adequate circulation.

Conditions for Such Surgeries

Such replantation surgeries are performed depending on the following factors:

• Time lapsed since the injury
• Condition of the amputated organ
• Nature of the injury- a clean cut is easier to operate on than a crushed injury.