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12/1/05

Daily Times - First Face Transplant in France

Daily Times

First Face Transplant in France

Surgeons in France have carried out the first face transplant, it has been reported.

The woman had lost her nose, lips and chin after being savaged by a dog. BBC reported that in the controversial operation, tissues, muscles, arteries and veins were taken from a brain-dead donor and attached to the patient’s lower face. Doctors stress the woman will not look like her donor, but nor will she look like she did before the attack – instead she will have a ‘hybrid’ face.

It has been technically possible to carry out such a transplant for some years, with teams in the US, the UK and France researching the procedure. Skin from another person’s face is better for transplants as it will be a better match than skin from another part of the patient’s body, which could have a different texture or colour. But the ethical concerns of a face transplant, and the psychological impact to the patient of looking different has held teams back. Concerns relating to immunosuppression, psychological impact and the consequence of technical failure have so far prevented ethical approval of the procedure in the UK, though doctors there are fully able to perform transplants. The 38-year-old French patient from the northern French town of Valenciennes underwent extensive counselling before her operation, which is believed to have lasted at least five hours, and which took place at the weekend at a hospital in Amiens. The French magazine Le Point reports that the tissues, muscles, arteries and veins needed for the transplant were taken from a multi-organ donor in the northern city of Lille, who was brain-dead.

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