Munich surgeons perform world’s first transplantation of whole arms

The world’s first double transplantation of complete arms was performed last month in a 16 hour operation by a group of 40 surgeons and nurses at the Munich Technical University Hospital.

On 1 August the two surgeons responsible for the operation, Hans-Günther Machens and Christoph Höhnke, held a press conference in Munich to announce that the operation had taken place and that the patient was doing well.

Double hand and forearm transplantations have been done before in the United States and in Austria. The operation in Munich is the first to connect short upper arm stumps with almost …