Spanish Surgeon Gets the Nod to Perform World's First Full Leg Transplant

A Spanish surgeon has been given the green light to carry out the world's first full leg transplant. Surgeon Pedro Cavadas will be performing the transplant in full view of the public.

Prosthetic limbs have developed to the point where most amputees with injuries below the knee do not need to risk a transplant.

Full leg transplant is for people who require whole-leg amputations caused by traffic accidents and landmine explosions. This operation is a step towards a possible chance of giving people their normal lives.

"There's nothing written about this. We're moving in uncharted waters. We're going to be the first because nobody else out there is researching this field. But it really doesn't matter who does the operation, me or another surgeon. The important thing is that it gets done," The Independent quoted Cavadas as saying.

"If I was doing this out of vanity, it would be far too dangerous. Surgery done as a way of boosting your ego tends to end up with a dead body on the operating table," he added.

Spain's National Transplant Association gave the nod for the operation was in May after the probable patient, a car-accident victim, had consented to the operation. Now the search for a donor has been started.

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"It's all come about thanks to our work on lower-leg surgery. We've discovered enough from that to make it possible to carry out a full-leg operation, and to feel confident about it," Cavadas said.

The operation will be carried out in the Hospital Universitari La Fe in Valencia, with Cavadas and his team of surgeons doing the scalpel wielding and leg welding.

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Source-ANI