Scientific articleA Survey of North American Hand Surgeons on Their Current Attitudes Toward Hand Transplantation
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
In 2007, a survey was devised to determine current attitudes toward the evolving field of CTA from hand surgeons in the United States. This web-based survey was sent to all active members of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) via e-mail. The survey consisted of 18 questions (see Appendix, which can be viewed at the Journal's Web site, http://www.jhandsurg.org) and was blinded to enhance the response rate, ensure that each response remained anonymous, and minimize bias.
The
Demographics and practice profile
Of the 2,150 ASSH members contacted, 474 responded to the survey (22% response rate). The respondents averaged 15 years in practice, and most had residency training in orthopedic (N = 298, 63%) or plastic surgery (N = 104, 22%), with the remainder having trained in general surgery (N = 40). Three hundred forty (72%) subsequently completed a hand fellowship (Fig. 1). They performed on average of approximately 10 upper extremity replantations per year and 1 functional free tissue (such as
Discussion
The traumatic amputation of a patient's hand is a disfiguring event with immeasurable personal, psychological, financial, and social implications in addition to the obvious functional limitations. The ability to safely transplant a fully integrated and functional hand to these amputees would be of tremendous reconstructive value. Currently, clinical hand transplantation remains an experimental procedure, and the outcomes of this innovative procedure are still being determined. In the current
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