Rare transplant for fingerless girl

A four-year-old girl who was born with only one, fingerless, hand has had a toe transformed into a finger in the first operation of its kind in SA.

The 11-hour operation at Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town was performed by a four-strong team led by plastic surgeon Mark van der Velde.

It was the fourth time Van der Velde had operated on the little girl‚ named only as Angelique‚ who will spend the next few months working with occupational therapists.

Angelique was born with bilateral symbrachydactyly‚ a congenital condition in which there are various degrees of missing and shortened digits.

“Usually‚ symbrachydactyly occurs only in one limb‚ but in her case she was born without a hand on her left side and without fingers on her right hand, apart from a rudimentary right thumb‚” the Western Cape health department said.

Van der Velde has been working on Angelique’s hands since she was six months old.