Extremity replantation

From January, 1963 to June, 1976, replantation of severed limbs and digits was performed in 438 patients at the Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital. The survival rate of replanted limbs was 83.2%, and 57.5% for replanted digits. Since 1973, the survival rate of replanted digits using microsurgery has been 92.3%. There were no postoperative deaths and few systemic complications. Local complications were responsible for failure of the replantation in 122 patients. Follow‐up for more than 1 year of 214 patients showed only 3.9% with little or no functional recovery, despite survival of the replanted limb, while 34.1% were able to resume their original work with complete or nearly complete recovery of sensation. Replantation has been used successfully in severed extremities that experienced up to 36 hours of ischemia, in transpositional replantation of multiple severed digits, and with resection of the tumorbearing segment of a malignant upper extremity. In order to improve the rate of success, we believe that popularization of the replantation technique is most important.