US doctors plan first human face transplant
Sep 27, 2005
PEOPLE with deformed faces, because of such mishaps as accidents and genetic fault now have hope of regaining their original look, thanks to the face transplant technology advancement.
PEOPLE with deformed faces, because of such mishaps as accidents and genetic fault now have hope of regaining their original look, thanks to the face transplant technology advancement.
Doctors at a US clinic have won approval from the clinic’s internal review board and will start interviewing potential recipients for the world’s first face transplant in the next few weeks.
The medical team at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio is led by Maria Siemionow, a 55-year-old surgeon who has spent years conducting research into face transplants, including experiments on animals and human cadavers (dead body preserved for dissection study).
She told Associated Press that this will be aimed at really disfigured patients not someone who has a little scar.
Technology
While the capability to perform face transplants has existed for years, nobody has attempted it because of concerns over the procedure’s ethical implications.
Last year, a team at the University of Louisville, US, which successfully transplanted a human hand, decided not to go ahead with face transplants.
“At stake is a person’s self-image, social acceptability and sense of normalcy,†wrote Osborne Wiggins, a philosophy professor and clinical investigator at the university, in the American Journal of Bioethics.
How it works?
The operation is expected to last up to 24 hours. A “skin envelope†from a donor is attached to the recipient using one or two pairs of veins and arteries on either side of the face. About 20 nerve endings would also be attached.
Surgeons would need to take all the skin from the donor’s hairline to jaw line and from ear to ear. They would also save the nose, mouth, lips, eyebrows and eyelids and ensure that the muscles, the layer of fat and the nerves were still attached. Along with eight blood vessels, each element of the donated face would have to be carefully reconnected in a surgical procedure that could last up to 24 hours.
What are the risks?
Carson Strong, a bioethicist at the University of Tennessee, wrote in the American Journal of Bioethics: “It would leave the patient with an extensive facial wound with potentially serious physical and psychological consequences.â€
Other opponents are concerned about the possibility of rejection of the transplanted tissue by the recipient’s immune system because it is a foreign tissue as well as cultural and ethical problems.
They are also concerned that the procedure, if successful, could be exploited for cosmetic surgery. Others are also worried of the risks, which are still unknown.
Who would the patient look like?
The recipient should look similar to the way they did before the operation. This is because the skin is grafted on to existing bone and muscle, which determine the shape of a face.
Similarly, expressions and facial characteristics (tone, texture and hair colour) are determined by the brain and are not the product of facial tissue.
However, other researchers insist that the final result will resemble a combination of the recipient and the donor.
How long would it take to recover?
The recipient might have to stay in hospital for several weeks. Patients would also have to take drugs to suppress their immune system for the rest of their lives otherwise it would attack the new face.
Agencies
Doctors at a US clinic have won approval from the clinic’s internal review board and will start interviewing potential recipients for the world’s first face transplant in the next few weeks.
The medical team at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio is led by Maria Siemionow, a 55-year-old surgeon who has spent years conducting research into face transplants, including experiments on animals and human cadavers (dead body preserved for dissection study).
She told Associated Press that this will be aimed at really disfigured patients not someone who has a little scar.
Technology
While the capability to perform face transplants has existed for years, nobody has attempted it because of concerns over the procedure’s ethical implications.
Last year, a team at the University of Louisville, US, which successfully transplanted a human hand, decided not to go ahead with face transplants.
“At stake is a person’s self-image, social acceptability and sense of normalcy,†wrote Osborne Wiggins, a philosophy professor and clinical investigator at the university, in the American Journal of Bioethics.
How it works?
The operation is expected to last up to 24 hours. A “skin envelope†from a donor is attached to the recipient using one or two pairs of veins and arteries on either side of the face. About 20 nerve endings would also be attached.
Surgeons would need to take all the skin from the donor’s hairline to jaw line and from ear to ear. They would also save the nose, mouth, lips, eyebrows and eyelids and ensure that the muscles, the layer of fat and the nerves were still attached. Along with eight blood vessels, each element of the donated face would have to be carefully reconnected in a surgical procedure that could last up to 24 hours.
What are the risks?
Carson Strong, a bioethicist at the University of Tennessee, wrote in the American Journal of Bioethics: “It would leave the patient with an extensive facial wound with potentially serious physical and psychological consequences.â€
Other opponents are concerned about the possibility of rejection of the transplanted tissue by the recipient’s immune system because it is a foreign tissue as well as cultural and ethical problems.
They are also concerned that the procedure, if successful, could be exploited for cosmetic surgery. Others are also worried of the risks, which are still unknown.
Who would the patient look like?
The recipient should look similar to the way they did before the operation. This is because the skin is grafted on to existing bone and muscle, which determine the shape of a face.
Similarly, expressions and facial characteristics (tone, texture and hair colour) are determined by the brain and are not the product of facial tissue.
However, other researchers insist that the final result will resemble a combination of the recipient and the donor.
How long would it take to recover?
The recipient might have to stay in hospital for several weeks. Patients would also have to take drugs to suppress their immune system for the rest of their lives otherwise it would attack the new face.
Agencies