POTENTIAL OF HAND TRANSPLANTATION PROGRAM IN COLOMBIA

Constanza Moreno¹, Julio Bermudez¹, Luis Latorre¹.

¹Division of Hand and Microsurgery, Department of Orthopedics, Fundacion Santa Fe de Bogota University Hospital, Bogota, Colombia.

The protocols and published results on hand transplantation, show how these, have been acceptable to apropiate this technology. None of the registered groups has had enough patients to allow continuity of the process.

In Colombia the main problems are violence, drug traffic and guerrillas. Thanks to the profitability of drug traffic, guerrillas who initially were created based on ideological differences, have become terrorist groups whose main source of income is drug traffic. From there comes the use of landmines to protect illicit crops. Colombia is the first mined country in the world followed by Cambodia and Afghanistan, and the only country in Latin America where there are still landmines. The mines, violence and trauma produce a high number of people with disabilities and amputations. From 1990 to 2006, the number of victims has risen from 21 to 1041 per year. In Colombia amputations are more frequent by trauma than by diseases.

The social, political and economic development is affected, since 88% of victims are people at working age. These alarming numbers, generate a challenge for government, which has led to the creation of policies and laws aimed at comprehensive action against mines. This program under the Presidency has among its objectives the assistance to victims, including integrated treatment, prostheses and other procedures, financed entirely by the government.

The number, type of victims and their motivation to be transplanted, along with government programs directed to their attention, are key factors that we believe will enable the continuity of our hand transplantation program at the Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá, giving Colombia the unfortunate privilege of having the largest number of potential patients for transplantation.