Chat amputé des 2 pattes arrière qui s'est fait posé des "jambes bioniques".

Le pauvre minou s'est fait prendre les 2 pattes arrières dans une
moissoneuse batteuse...

Pour la vidéo : [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]



A
cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been
given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet.

The
new feet are custom-made implants that "peg" the ankle to the foot.
They are bioengineered to mimic the way deer antler bone grows through
the skin.

The operation - a world first - was carried out by Noel
Fitzpatrick, a veterinary surgeon based in Surrey.

His work is
explored in a BBC documentary called The Bionic Vet.

The cat,
named Oscar, was referred to Mr Fitzpatrick by his local vet in Jersey,
following the accident last October. Oscar was struck by the combine
harvester whilst dozing in the sun.

The prosthetic pegs, called
intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps) were
developed by a team from University College London led by Professor
Gordon Blunn, who is head of UCL's Centre for Biomedical Engineering.

Professor
Blunn and his team have worked in partnership with Mr Fitzpatrick to
develop these weight-bearing implants, combining engineering mechanics
with biology.

Mr Fitzpatrick explained: "The real revolution with
Oscar is [that] we have put a piece of metal and a flange into which
skin grows into an extremely tight bone."

"We have managed to get
the bone and skin to grow into the implant and we have developed an
'exoprosthesis' that allows this implant to work as a see-saw on the
bottom of an animal's limbs to give him effectively normal gait."

Professor
Blunn told BBC News the idea was initially developed for patients with
amputations who have a "stump socket".

"This means they fix their
artifical limb with a sock, which fits over the stump. In a lot of
cases this is sucessful, but you [often] get rubbing and pressure
sores."

The Itap technology is being tested in humans and has
already been used to create a prosthetic for a woman who lost her arm in
the July 2005 London bombings.

"The intriguing thing with Oscar
was that he had two implants - one in each back leg, and in quite an
unusual site," Professor Blunn told BBC News.

He said that the
success of this operation showed the potential of the technology.

"Noel
has some brilliant ideas," he added. "And we're continuing to work
closely with him to develop new technologies."