Jacob Cherian - All Headline News Contributor

Minsk, Belarus (AHN)-- Surgeons have performed a unique operation transplanting a rabbit's thyroid gland tissue to a human patient.

If this is successful, this might be a new way to assist patients who have lost their thyroid gland.

Professor Stanislav Tretyak of the Belarussian State University told Itar-Tass, "This technology has been used for the first time in the world. It relies on four years of research."

Scientists believe that this treatment may prove highly successful for Belarus, which was worst affected by the Chernobyl power plant accident.

Since twenty years after the disaster, the rate of thyroid gland cancer in adult patients has grown six times.