India has set up a registry for the first time for patients requiring hand transplantation, which will facilitate the allocation of the donated organ in a transparent manner and on a priority basis.
- The registration will be accepted in the national registry maintained by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), which falls under the aegis of the Union Health Ministry.
- All the hand transplant centres/hospitals should register such patients/recipients requiring hands for transplants under the category ‘bone’ of the tissue section in subject demography management,
- According to experts, usually organs are donated after brain death but hands can be donated both after brain death and cardiac death.
- In case of a cardiac death, hands should have to be donated within half an hour after the heart has stopped and this should take place in a controlled environment within a hospital.
- Hands fall under the category of ‘composite tissue’.
- Hand transplants started in India in 2015 when a 29-year-old man underwent bilateral hand transplants.
