Foot to Hand Finger Transplants
Mostly due to trauma, but less commonly, congenital deficiencies in the fingers may occur. In this case, if the number of missing fingers is insufficient to fulfill the grasping function of the hand, a transplant from the toes to the hand may be necessary. In this method, it is the method that gives the best results among the finger reconstruction methods of plastic surgery, as the repair is made with the toes that are functionally and aesthetically most similar to the fingers. In order of frequency, the thumb comes first in finger transplantations from foot to hand, followed by the index and long fingers. Especially in patients who do not have any fingers other than the thumb, transplanting both toes can provide better results. In this way, in addition to grasping coarse objects, it can also grasp objects such as pencils, which we call fine grasping.
Studies have shown that while adult patients have little chance of accepting this surgery, they can accept it more easily for their children. Based on my clinical experience and scientific data, these surgeries provide excellent results for maximum function and aesthetics of the hand for everyone except the very elderly. The most important concern from my patients is that they will lose walking function or encounter aesthetic problems when their toes move to their hands. The two most important points in the walking function of the foot are the heel and the support surface at the end of the toe. Since the heel remains intact and the support point of the remaining toes is intact, there is no loss of walking function. Even in patients who have two fingers removed, especially one finger, no obvious aesthetic problem is noticed unless much attention is paid to the number of fingers from the outside.
The most important point here is to evaluate the gains on the scales according to the losses. While I can obtain a hand that is close to normal both aesthetically and functionally with the nail structure of a completely dysfunctional hand, I think that this aesthetic loss in the toes is not very important.
Below, you will see the result of the surgery on my pediatric patient who got his hand caught in the meat grinder. Fine and coarse grasping movements were achieved in a completely dysfunctional hand, and my patient returned to his normal life. Aesthetic loss in the foot is at an acceptable level
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