Accident victim’s fingers saved, stored and transplanted onto other hand Doctors have successfully transplanted the fingers of a man’s severed hand in the first operation of its kind in Australia - HSC - SSCE Biology - Question 12 - 2002 - Paper 1

In transplant scenarios, one of the primary reasons for successful acceptance of donor tissue is the compatibility of antigens between the donor and recipient. In this case, since the man’s left hand fingers position did not have different antigens from his right hand, this similarity helps prevent an immune response that would typically occur due to the presence of foreign antigens. Therefore, the absence of rejection can be attributed directly to the antigenic compatibility.