Early clinical trials on a group of patients who have lost limbs, fingers and thumbs, including two people injured in the July 7 bombings a year ago, are described as very promising. Doctors hope to involve more survivors of the London bombs, as well as military personnel and other volunteers who have suffered limb losses.

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.

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