For hand transplantation afer an accident patients have to be immunosuppressed, i.e. their total immune system has to be brought down with drugs to prevent their organism rejecting the foreign tissue. This treatment is associated with undesirable side effects and impairments to the quality of life. Until now though, patients have had no other option.

A research team from the Department of Plastic and Hand Surgery, Inselspital, and the Department of Clinical Research (DKF) of the University of Bern is now however investigating ways to replace systemic (total) immunosuppression with a local treatment of the transplanted limb. In laboratory experiments the results have been very promising.