First triple limb transplant

A hospital in southern Turkey on Saturday performed the world’s first triple limb transplant, attaching two arms and one leg to a 34-year-old man, an official said.

At the same time, a team of doctors at Akdeniz University Hospital, in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya, transplanted the face of the same donor onto another patient — a 19-year-old man. It was Turkey’s first face transplant.

“Today, we have put our signature on a world success,” Dr Israfil Kurtcephe, the university hospital’s rector, told reporters after the two operations. “For the first time a hospital has transplanted two arms and a leg on one patient.”