Doctors had first removed one leg from the patient after his heart and vascular system failed to sustain the limb and then the other leg and two arms. — Photo by AFP

ANKARA: Turkish surgeons removed both arms and legs from a patient who underwent what was touted as the world's first quadruple limb transplant due to metabolic complications, the hospital said on Monday.

Fifty-two doctors from Ankara's Hacettepe University Hospital performed the transplant on Friday, attaching two arms and two legs to Sevket Cavdar.

Doctors had first removed one leg from the patient after his heart and vascular system failed to sustain the limb and then the other leg and two arms.

“The science council (of the hospital) decided to remove the organs one by one due to additional metabolic complications in the following process,” the hospital said in a statement.

“Our patient is now in the intensive care unit. The critical process is still continuing,” it added.

Contacted by AFP, the doctors declined to share any details about the patient.

The operation came on the heels of the country's first-ever face transplant at another Turkish university hospital.

Last month, a team of doctors at Akdeniz University in the southern city of Antalya successfully performed the operation on a 19-year-old boy whose face was burned when he was a 40-day-old baby.