Woman receives world’s first face transplant
Published: November 30, 2005
A team of French surgeons has won the race to perform the world’s face transplant, giving a new face to a woman who was attacked by a dog, according to reports. [Transplant: From Myth to Reality]
London’s Evening Standard said that a team of doctors at a hospital in Amiens, northern France, gave the new face to a 36-year-old woman who lost her nose, lips and chin when she was mauled by a dog in January.
The operation was carried out over the weekend, according to the newspaper, but the surgical team, led by Jean-Michel Dubernard, the pioneer of hand transplants, tried to delay the news because of the profound ethical concerns that surround the procedure.
“The team were very excited after the operation. The patient is still in a critical condition but it is a world first for many badly disfigured people around the world,” the newspaper quoted a source at the hospital as saying.
The patient is understood to have survived the first 48 hours after the operation without any severe reaction to her new face. The first days after a major transplant operation are seen as the time of greatest risk of rejection.
To perform the operation, Dr Dubernard, head of transplant surgery at the University of Lyon, took the face of a donor and worked through the night to strip it of excess skin, fat and blood vessels before attaching it to the patient and reconnecting the tissues. [The Puzzle People: Memoirs of a Transplant Surgeon]
The patient is said to have received extensive counselling before the operation because of the intense psychological implications of a face transplant. As the recipient of a transplant, she will have to take immuno-suppressant drugs for the rest of her life and suffer a significant risk of infection, cancer, and liver and kidney failure.
Dr Dubernard carried out the world’s first hand transplant in 1998 and then performed a double hand and forearm transplant in 2000. His team has been one of four around the world, including scientists at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, who have waiting for a patient, and permission, to carry out the world’s first face transplant. (See also: Ohio hospital readies for face transplant)
In November 2003, the Royal College of Surgeons advised British doctors against performing face replacements, which have been technically possible for several years, because of the unknown psychological and physical consequences of the operation.
Regulatory authorities in the US, Italy and the Netherlands, where surgeons have explored the possibility of face transplants, have also been reluctant to grant permission for the transplant, which, unlike other major organ transplants, is not life-saving.
But reconstructive surgeons argue that carefully selected patients, who have suffered major disfigurement and respond positively to counselling, should be eligible for the operation. The bone structure of the recipient means that they will never resemble their donor too closely.
Three American clinics planning the operation say they have been flooded with applicants for the surgery. [The Face Book: The Consumer's Guide to Facial Plastic Surgery]
“It is a great step forward for European science and medicine,” Professor Peter Butler, consultant plastic surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital and a leading proponent of face transplants in the UK, told the Standard. “It is a relief for me and will make it easier for others now. We have been progressing quite slowly and for me it doesn’t change the timescale but it will be beneficial ethically.”
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