Face Transplant

Doctors perform first partial face transplant

Doctors in France had performed the world’s first partial face transplant, forging the way into a risky medical frontier by operating on a woman disfigured by a dog bite.

The 38-year-old woman had a nose, lips and chin grafted onto her face from a brain-dead donor whose family gave consent. The operation was led by a surgeon already famous for a transplant breakthrough, Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard.

Scientists in China have performed scalp and ear transplants, but experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.

The surgery drew both praise and sobering warnings over its potential risks and ethical and psychological ramifications. If successful — something that may not be known for months or even years — the procedure offers hope to people horribly disfigured by burns, accidents or other tragedies.

The woman was “severely disfigured” by a dog bite in May that made it difficult for her to speak and chew.Such injuries are “extremely difficult, if not impossible” to repair using normal surgical techniques.

Scientists around the world are working to perfect techniques involved in transplanting faces. Today’s best treatments leave many people with facial disfigurement and scar tissue that doesn’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 uses 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 for both a full face transplant and a partial effort is organ rejection, causing the skin to slough off.

Complications also include infections that turn the new face black and require a second transplant or reconstruction with skin grafts, perhaps even one or two years later. Drugs to prevent rejection are needed for life and raise the risk of kidney damage and cancer.

Such concerns have delayed British plans to attempt the operation. In France, ethics authorities rejected an application to try a full face transplant last year, but left the door open for a partial procedure involving the mouth and nose.

Taken from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10265941/