7/7 victims are bionic surgery pioneers (new technology binds skin to metal)

The technology, known as Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis (ITAP), could lead to the use of fully functioning bionic limbs, linked up to a person’s nervous system and controlled by the patient, within five years.

The technique involves a metal implant attached to bone that protrudes through the skin, which forms a seal around it. Prostheses can then be attached to the device. The breakthrough came after the team of scientists from University College London’s Centre for Biomedical Engineering observed how skin moulds around deers’ antlers.

The ability to attach a prosthetic limb directly to a patient’s skeleton, breaching the skin without infection, not only removes the discomfort of conventional prostheses, but it also reduces the substantial medical costs involved with replacement of sockets, repeated prosthetic fittings, treatment of infections and pressure sores and surgical procedures.

Norbert Kang, a plastic surgeon and the lead investigator in the first clinical trial, based at Mount Vernon Hospital, said that the technique had already been shown to have a significant impact on patients’ lives. One has been able to use a pen and write for the first time in ten years. Another, who lost an eye to cancer, has had a prosthetic eye attached using the technology.

Paul Unwin, managing director of Stanmore Implants Worldwide, a medical devices firm working in collaboration with UCL, described the work as highly successful, so far. “ITAP has the potential to play a key role in the next generation of bionic prostheses, working with artificially intelligent powered limbs, under the control of the patient’s own nervous system,” he said.

The incidence of limb and digit amputation in the developed world is about 390 per million people. In the European Union there are approximately 156,000 digits and limbs amputated annually, mainly as a result of disease.

Update to All

BBC NEWS Health 'Bionic' limb breakthrough made

'Bionic' limb breakthrough made

A metal rod protrudes through the skin

Technology that enables artificial limbs to be directly attached to a human skeleton has been developed by British scientists.

The breakthrough, developed by researchers at University College London, allows the prosthesis to breach the skin without risk of infection.

The team has said that early clinical trials have been "very promising".

It hopes the work may benefit survivors of the 7 July bombings, as well as other amputees.

The work paves the way for bionic limbs which are controlled by the central nervous system.

In the deer antlers it is very much to do with the structure and shape of the bone, and the porosity of the bone

Dr Paul Unwin

The technique, called Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis (ITAP), involves securing a titanium rod directly into the bone.

The metal implant passes through the skin and the artificial limb can be directly attached to it.

Currently, artificial limbs are fixed or strapped to an amputee's stump.

Risk of infection, which could be caused by bacteria passing from the external limb through the rod to the bone, is avoided because the skin tissue meshes around the rod to form a seal.

Deer antlers

To work out how to attach live tissue directly to metal, the scientists from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering, UCL, led by Professor Gordon Blunn and Dr Catherine Pendegrass, looked at how deers' antlers can grow through the animals' skin without infection.

The scientists based their design on the bone in a deer's antlers

The work will be published in the Journal of Anatomy.

Dr Paul Unwin, managing director of Stanmore Implants Worldwide, a medical devices company that worked in collaborated with the scientists, said: "The mobility of tissue is a big factor; you don't want the tissue to rip away from the piece of metal, so you need a structure under the skin that will allow the dermal tissues to attach into the metal.

"What we had seen in the deer antlers was that it is very much to do with the structure and shape of the bone, and the porosity of the bone.

"The tissue attaches in with long fibres, and it is like anchors attaching directly into it."

He said that early clinical trials, which had taken places at Mount Vernon Hospital, Middlesex, on a small group of patients who had lost fingers or thumbs had been very encouraging.

The next stage, he added, would be to carry out trials on upper and lower limb replacements.

He said he expected victims of last year's London bombing attacks who lost limbs to be involved.

He said that the technology could be widely used for thumb and forefingers in a few years, and upper and lower limb replacements using this method could be in place in five years.

Zafar Khan, chairman of the Limbless Association, said: "As an amputee, residual limbs are currently inserted into a socket, to which a prosthetic limb is attached.

"And when you walk or use the limb there is a movement and that causes rubbing and pressure sores. The real benefit is that would not happen with this new technique.

"But on the downside, I would still be worried about infection."