Woman has first face transplant

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.

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.

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.

It added that the woman - who wishes to remain anonymous - was in "excellent general health" and said the graft looked normal .

Like any other transplant patient, the woman will have to take immunosuppressant drugs to help her body cope with the donated tissue.

Doctors working in the field say many could benefit from the procedure, including 10,000 burns victims in the UK.
Iain Hutchison, an oral-facial surgeon at Barts and the London Hospital, said: "This is the first face transplant using skin from another person."

Mr Hutchison, who is chief executive of Saving Faces - the Facial Surgery Research Foundation, warned blood vessels in the donated tissue could clot, the immunosuppressants could fail - and would increase the patient's risk of cancer."


My view: We should be gratified that the medical skill is more and more advanced. The rate of mortality will be reduced. Our chances to continue living to higher age will also be increased.

However, the society is reality. You may continue your life if you own a lot of money. If not, you will wait and suffer until you are died. This is due to the increase of the medical expenses. Although we said that we may live longer in this world with this more and more advanced medical skill and apparatus, we have to think that the cost of treatment will be higher and higher also. How those poor and unaffordable people can bear these expenses? Ar~~