Partial Face Transplant Done in France

By CAROLE BIANCHI, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago



LYON, France - Doctors have performed the world's first partial face transplant, grafting a nose, lips and chin onto a 38-year-old woman disfigured by a dog bite, hospital officials said Wednesday.

The surgery was performed Sunday, said a statement from medics at hospitals in Lyon and Amiens. The surgery was performed in Amiens in northern France, but doctors from both hospitals participated.

One of the doctors who performed the surgery, Jean-Michel Dubernard, would not discuss the case when contacted by The Associated Press.

"We still don't know when the patient will get out," he said.

A news conference is planned for Friday.

The hospitals' statement said the woman was in "excellent" condition, and the transplanted organs looked "normal." She wants to remain anonymous, the statement added.

The woman was disfigured by a dog bite in May, and the injury made it difficult for her to speak and chew, the statement said. Such injuries are "extremely difficult, if not impossible" to repair using normal surgical techniques, it added.

The organs were taken from a donor who was brain dead, with the family's consent, the statement said.

Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.



Doctors elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants.

Dubernard collaborated in the transplant with Bernard Devauchelle.

Dubernard also led teams that performed a forearm transplant on a 49-year-old New Zealander in September 1998 and the first double arm transplant in January 2000 on Denis Chatelier, who lost both forearms when a model rocket he was trying to launch exploded.

Scientists around the world are working to perfect the technique involved in transplanting faces. Today's best treatments still leave many people with freakish, scar-tissue masks that don't look or move like natural skin.

A complete face transplant, which involves applying a sheet of skin in one operation, has never been done before. The procedure is complex but would use standard surgical techniques.

Critics say the surgery is too risky for something that is not a matter of life or death, as regular organ transplants are.

The main worry is that if the immune system rejects the transplant, the skin will slough off, leaving the patient worse off than before. Complications also could include infections that turn the new face black and require a second transplant or reconstruction with skin grafts.

Drugs to prevent rejection would be needed lifelong, and they raise the risk of kidney damage and cancer.

Such concerns have delayed plans to attempt the operation in England.

In France, ethics authorities rejected an application by doctors to try the surgery last year but left the door open for partial transplants around the mouth and nose.

In the United States, the Cleveland Clinic is among those planning to try a face transplant.

"It doesn't change our plans," said Dr. Maria Siemionow, a clinic surgeon.

She said the clinic was "really looking for the right candidate," which she described as "severely disfigured patients which have already had the conventional treatment" and for whom a transplant is the last chance.

Doctors at Jinling Hospital in Nanjing, China, reported that they transplanted two ears, part of the scalp and other facial skin from a brain-dead young man to a 72-year-old woman with advanced skin cancer in September 2003.

Four months later, there were no signs of rejection or tumor recurrence, but it is not known how the patient fared after that.

Doctors around the world have performed partial face transplants using the patients' own skin, but those do not require anti-rejection drugs.


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[SpurInDallas]

Pic?

[Spurs|ATX|]

anyone see the nip/tuck facial transplant??