Doctors in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province have successfully transplanted the arms from a person with dead brain to a man whose arms had been amputated in an accident.
The operation was conducted in October at the First Affiliated Medical College of the Harbin Medical University in Harbin, capital of the province.
The doctors made the announcement Thursday after one month's observation after the operation.
Zhang Xinying, director of the college's department of orthopaedics, said the transplanted arms had survived rejection and infection stages and now were in good condition.
Chen Fugen, the patient, 50, whose arms were cut off in a machinery accident in January last year, had received a similar transplant operation in another hospital, which failed due to infection in the newly transplanted limbs within a month.
On October 13 this year, a group of doctors led by Zhang performed the second operation on Chen, which lasted for over 15 hours.
To transplant arms is much more difficult than transplanting a heart or other similar single organs due to stronger rejection reactions and more complications that have to be managed, doctors say, adding that the survival rate of transplanted arms is extremely low.
(Xinhua News Agency November 24, 2002)
