[History of hand transplantation: advancement in the operative technics, medications and the survival of the transplanted hands. Review of literature].

The author summarizes briefly the history of hand allograft transplantation, the basics of the operative technics, and the medicinal treatment of the immunosuppression. He establishes that this operation requires complicated team-work: many specialists must be united in the interest of the successful final outcome. The biggest problem is not the technical challenge of the complicated operation, but the ineffectiveness of immunosuppression, its complications; even though significant development has happened in this field and experimental results are also encouraging. The author discusses these questions in this publication in the mirror of literature data. He states, that a successful hand transplantation, with its sensory and motoric functions can increase quality of life, in contrast with the ortheses. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(38): 1483-1487.