By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2013 – As a wounded warrior who lost all
four limbs in Iraq shared news of his successful double-arm transplant
yesterday, officials at the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative
Medicine, which funded the research making it possible, say the
investment will continue to bear fruit in giving new hope to wounded
warriors.
A
surgical team performs a double-arm transplant on Army Spc. Brendan
Marrocco at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Dec. 18, 2012.
Marrocco lost all four limbs to an explosively formed projectile in Iraq
in 2009. The Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine funded
research to advance the techniques that made the surgery possible. Photo
courtesy of Johns Hopkins Hospital
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. |
|
Army Spc. Brendan Marrocco appeared yesterday with his medical team,
led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, chair of Johns Hopkins Hospital’s plastic
and reconstructive surgery department, to announce the successful Dec.
18 double transplant at the Baltimore hospital.
“I really don’t
know what to say, because it is such a big thing for my life,”
26-year-old Marrocco told reporters as he demonstrated his ability to
move his new left arm. His right arm has limited movement, but Marrocco
said he’s hoping to get more soon.
Standing proudly alongside
other members of the surgical team was one of his surgeons, Navy Lt.
Cmdr. (Dr.) Patrick L. Basile of Walter Reed National Military Medical
Center in Bethesda, Md. Basile is assistant chief and director of
microsurgery and supervisor for rotating medical students at Walter
Reed’s plastic and reconstructive surgery department.
Marrocco,
who enlisted in the Army in January 2008, deployed to Iraq nine months
later with the 25th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade, Alpha Company, 2nd
Battalion, 27th Regiment. He and his fellow soldiers had completed a
night mission and were returning to Forward Operating Base Summerall on
April 12, 2009, when their armored vehicle has hit by an explosively
formed projectile -- a roadside bomb designed specifically to pierce
armor.
The explosion, which severed Marrocco’s carotid artery and
severed all of his limbs, also killed one soldier and wounded another.
Quickly medevaced through Iraq to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in
Germany and on to Walter Reed, Marrocco became one of the first
quadruple amputees of the conflict to survive his wounds.
He had
been wearing prosthetic limbs before the 13-hour surgery, the first of
its kind at Johns Hopkins and only the seventh in the United States. His
rehabilitation will continue for years, his surgical team explained, as
his nerves slowly regenerate – one inch per month – and he gains the
ability to use and control the arms and hands.
“I feel like I got
a second chance to start over after I got hurt,” Marrocco told
reporters yesterday. “If feels amazing. It’s something I was waiting for
for a long time.”
Excitement about the successful transplant,
and its implications for other wounded warriors, rippled through the
U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, Md.,
home of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. The Defense
Department launched AFIRM in 2008 to advance research to treat wounded
warriors suffering traumatic injuries, explained Army Col. (Dr.) John
Scherer, director of the clinical and rehabilitative medicine research
program.
One of the goals was to promote transplant procedures
that were being conducted overseas, but typically not in the United
States, he said. “We wanted to move the scientific field forward to make
this an option, not only for wounded service members, but for anyone
who may benefit from such a surgery,” Scherer said.
Five years
after AFIRM was established, Scherer said, he’s excited to see that
effort pay off in ways that can transform people’s lives.
“This
goes to the commitment we have to always do our best to do whatever we
can to improve the care they get,” he said. “This is pushing the
boundaries of clinical medicine to improve on that care,” he added,
particularly when compared with options available just a few years ago.
AFIRM stands as a testament to America’s pledge to stand by its wounded warriors, Scherer said.
“It is our duty to do whatever we can to repair these very severe
injuries, to push the boundaries of medicine and to say, ‘What we are
doing currently is not good enough until we can actually restore the
function of the tissue of the hand or arm that was lost,’” he said.
“That is our main goal: to make that individual whole again and to do
whatever we can, medically, to get there.”
AFIRM is managed and
funded through the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, with
additional funding from the Navy’s Office of Naval Research, the Air
Force Surgeon General’s Office; the Department of Defense Office of
Health Affairs; National Institutes of Health and the Veterans Affairs
Department.
Their initial $100 million investment, spread over
five years, has nearly tripled with local public and private matching
funds, Scherer said.
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