Soldier Who Lost 4 Limbs Has Double-Arm Transplant

In this July 4, 2012 file photo, Army Sgt. Brendan Marrocco of Staten Island, N.Y., wearing a prosthetic arm, poses for a picture at the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Marrocco, 26, the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq war, has received a double-arm transplant in Baltimore. His father, Alex Marrocco, said Monday, Jan. 28, 2013 that his son had the operation on Dec. 18, 2012 at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The first soldier to survive after losing all four limbs in the Iraq war has received a double-arm transplant.

Brendan Marrocco had the operation on Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday. The 26-year-old Marrocco, who is from New York City, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009.

He also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military is sponsoring operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in the wars.

"He was the first quad amputee to survive" from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there have been four others since then, said Brendan Marrocco's father, Alex Marrocco. "He was really excited to get new arms."

The Marroccos want to thank the donor's family for "making a selfless decision ... making a difference in Brendan's life," the father said.

Surgeons plan to discuss the transplant at a news conference with the patient on Tuesday.

The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins, and is the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States. Lee led three of those earlier operations when he previously worked at the University of Pittsburgh, including the only above-elbow transplant that had been done at the time, in 2010.

Marrocco's "was the most complicated one" so far, Lee said in an interview Monday. It will take more than a year to know how fully Marrocco will be able to use the new arms, Lee said.

"The maximum speed is an inch a month for nerve regeneration," he explained. "We're easily looking at a couple years" until the full extent of recovery is known.

While at Pittsburgh, Lee pioneered the novel immune suppression approach used for Marrocco. The surgeon led hand transplant operations on five patients, giving them marrow from their donors in addition to the new limbs. All five recipients have done well and four have been able to take just one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.

Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants. Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it.

Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.

Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new minimal immune suppression approach.

Marrocco expects to spend three to four months at Hopkins, then return to a military hospital to continue physical therapy, his father said. Before the operation, he had been living with his older brother in a handicapped-accessible home on New York's Staten Island built with the help of several charities.

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

Despite being in a lot of pain for some time after the operation, Marrocco showed a sense of humor, his father said. He had a hoarse voice from a tube in his throat during the long surgery, decided that he sounded like Al Pacino, and started doing movie lines.

"He was making the nurses laugh," Alex Marrocco said.

via news.yahoo.com

Comments

[Tsunami]

Will you please for fk sake stop posting completely irrelevant pictures and articles to this site? It's called Retail Hell, not Warm Fuzzy Veterans News, Cute Youtube Videos I Found, The Huffington Repost, or Funny Pictures I Saw on 9gag/fukung/imgur Earlier Today. Everyone else who contributes to this site understands this but you.

To Admins: please revoke Ilia's posting priveleges. She constantly abuses them.

[Max]

How exactly is this related to retail? Yay for him getting a prosthetic arm and all that, but I do not come to RHU to see this kind of stuff...

[Katie]

agreed with Max and tsunami... I want tales about retail, not random stories that have fuck all to do with retail

[derrr]

Guys, I agree that this story isn't related to retail.

This story is nice, heartwarming, but this isn't why we come here. But I don't think that Ilia's privileges should be revoked. Chill.

Admins, let's get this site back on topic. Less derpy image spam and non-retail stuff, moar retail please.

[Ilia]

Ahh screams of pain and howls of anguish rip the night air like a vengeful siren song! *kisses fingers* Mwah! What a delightful bouquet of suffering you pitiful mortals feed me.

Allow me to clarify something: THERE ARE NO ADMINS, THERE IS ONLY ZOOL!

Or, you know, Freddy.

If Freddy agrees with you, he will contact me and ask me to be stricter to the guidelines (such as they are) when posting to the site. I will comply to his wishes. Just because YOU don't recognize it, or YOU don't like it, doesn't mean it doesn't apply. Also pictures are never going away... because HE sends them to ME to post to the site.

[Skittles]

I personally couldn't care less about added content as long as the retail stories and stuff keep coming. But I have to say llia that was a pretty inapropriate response. I dig that you are following instructions from Freddy but you are coming off as arrogant and snide. There's really no good reason for that. Anyone who has done moderation or been an admin would tell you that if people have issues snidely mocking them is just a good way to drive site traffic away.

[The Worst]

It's been said before, but it looks like it needs to be restated: if you don't like it, don't read it. Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with everyone above about how annoying/disappointing it is that this site has become overrun with irrelevant nonsense, but it's obvious Ilia (and I guess Freddy?) don't really care what readers think and aren't going to change anything, so if you do still want to enjoy the retail-related bits and pieces, you'll just have to pick and choose what you look at, or pick a different retail-focused blog to follow instead, like notalwaysright.com.

P.S. Ilia I felt bad for you when I read people's comments saying you should have posting privileges revoked instead of asking you nicely to be more focused with your posts, because that was pretty harsh. After reading your response, though... which came across as completely obnoxious and arrogant, even if that's not the effect you were going for... not so much.

[Nomnom]

Gotta agree. Are people just not sending in stories anymore? That's what I come here for - stories people wrote venting about their retail experiences. Not news stories that even about retail at all!

Ilia, whether YOU recognize it or not and whether YOU like it or not, you're still the person posting the content up and therefore an admin, or at the very least come off as one to the smallfolk. Please act more professional in your responses. Having hissy fits is no way for any person to act, ESPECIALLY one that's in a position of power.

[Evie]

Oh, for fuck's sake. You guys are acting just like the crusties you love to hate. Obviously Ilia is keeping the site alive the best she/he can, so if you want more content, maybe you should take the initiative to send some in. I would have a pissy response to all the whining, too. There is absolutely no reason why this person should have to act like they are "on the job" with us. Constructive criticism, fine. Nasty flaming makes you an ass.

[Bitch Boy]

Frankly, I liked it.

A little change of pace, something good happening to someone who truly needed it.

Of course I'd be willing to bet that any retail/food clerk that ends up dealing with him or any member of his family will more than likely have a delightful time working/servicing them.

[Nomnom]

It's natural for everyone to have a knee jerk pissy reaction to criticism, but the difference is whether you indulge in telling off your readers or not, Evie. The reason why this person should act like they are "on the job" is because this isn't their personal blog. I'm working on the assumption that the blog actually wants to have readers, and having the person in charge basically say "fuck you" if you post something they don't like is a pretty big turn off. And like I said before, having a hissy fit is no way for anyone to act at any time.

That being said, props to Ilia for her much more reasoned post responding to the complaints, thank you.

[Dan]

I feel so bad for these poor RHUers suffering from such sever CTS that they can't even manage to spin the mouse wheel enough to scroll down the page past the stories they don't like.

[Joat]

This is an awesome story and everyone who thinks this isn't a worthwhile story can shut their whiny muzzles.we need more positive things like this in our lives otherwise we are just a pathetic race of humanoids.
don't mean to whine but there is a limit to how much stupidity i can see before i call the idiots who complain on things that don't deserve it.