Double Arm Transplant Surgery | Hacker News Reader

Double Arm Transplant Surgery

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60 pointsaabaker999 comments

I cannot imagine the will it takes to go through this. All due to a sepsis/necrotizing fasciitis issue started from a strep infection which ended up taking all his limbs.

I find myself occasionally thinking about the fate of Mr. Albert Alexander who was the fourth patient to be treated with penicillin (who died because of the lack of sufficient quantity).

He was a constable who happened to be scratched in the mouth by a thorn bush and contacted strep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Alexander

I hope people remember stories like this and stop handing out anti-bacterial medication like candy.

If everything's a superbug and nothing works we're right back to the era when a paper cut could be fatal.

I work in this field (Infection Prevention and Control) and we get a few necrotizing fasciitis cases each year (I work at a large, tertiary hospital).

Very rarely are cases related to each other, and therefore have some common source of infection. More often than not, the cases are completely random and the patients could have done nothing to prevent it. Some may find that worrisome, for example, patients that get infections from such minor injuries such as a cut from gardening or falling on pavement. But other than keeping wounds clean, there isn't much you can do, so it shouldn't be something people should worry about.

This is amazing. At first I thought it was clickbait, but I watched the video and he can use arms that were transplanted. I am an organ donor, but I never realized it could be more than just a heart or kidney.

A head transplant surgery is scheduled for 2017

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/22/russian-man-to-un...

>when he caught an aggressive strep infection that progressed to sepsis and necrotizing fasciitis, costing him all four limbs.

Jesus. The other person the article lost her hands and feet during a surgery for Crohn's. Its incredible the risk we live with that we're usually unaware of.

Is anyone keeping an eye on how his nerves are rebuilding connections? This is would be pretty useful data for electronic prosthetics

It's ironic. At the same time that doctors perform this incredible feat, we are going back to the dark ages: People's bodies are completely destroyed by bacterial infections. I presume because of antibiotics immunity.

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