• Question: can you replace lost limbs?

    Asked by leah to Andrew on 22 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Andrew Phillips

      Andrew Phillips answered on 22 Jun 2015:

      Not yet, but that is what we are working towards. At the moment we are focusing on bone as it supports the forces in a limb, and without it there wouldn’t be anything to build the other tissues from.

      We can make artificial limbs, but it would be great if we could create limbs that would become part of the patient’s body. Artificial limbs have a lot of problems associated with them, particular where the touch the remaining part of any limb, which can cause pressure sores. There is a group who has had success in connecting artificial limbs through skin and into the remaining bone is a small number of patients, but there is a big risk you could damage the remaining skeleton.

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