Daily Times

When amputee Shreya Siddanagowda was offered new hands, the Indian student did not hesitate – even though they were big, dark and hairy, and once belonged to a man.

Now, her new hands have not only become more slender but also changed colour to match her skin tone, mystifying the doctors who carried out the 13-hour transplant.

Her donor was a 20-year-old person from Kerala, who not only had a much darker skin tone but who was also a man.

However, in the year since Siddanagowder received the transplant, the hands have begun to transform. Both have taken on a more feminine shape while changing skin tone to match Siddanagowder’s hue.

“I don’t know how the transformation occurred. But it feels like my own hands now. The skin color was very dark after the transplant, not that it was ever my concern, but now it matches my tone,” the 21-year-old recipient claimed.

Siddanagowder’s mother added that she had noticed her daughter’s wrists appear to get smaller and she saw her fingers get thinner as the appendages lengthened in the months following the transplant.

Back in September 2016, Shreya had lost both her hands in a bus accident while travelling from her hometown in Pune to her college in Karnataka. She was forced to amputate her hands due to the horrific incident.

Sachin, a B.Com student had been declared brain dead that day and his family had agreed to donate his organs including his hands. And, as Shreya’s blood type was compatible with Sachin, she underwent the double-hand transplant. It took over 13 hours and a team of 20 surgeons and 16 anaesthesia specialists to successfully attach the hand to Shreya’s body.

After that, for a year-and-a-half, Shreya underwent intensive physiotherapy in Kochi. “The hand felt heavy, it was bulky initially,” she said. However, in the last 3-4 months, Shreya’s mother Suma noticed that her fingers were becoming leaner. “I see her hand every day. The fingers have become like a woman’s, the wrist is smaller. These are remarkable changes,” she was quoted saying.

As Shreya’s hand started matching her skin tone, doctors were surprised as no scientific evidence exists to record changes in skin tone or shape of the limbs. According to doctors, this might be the first case perhaps as Shreya underwent Asia’s first inter-gender hand transplant.