Woman gets face transplant!

[brownie]

Frenchwoman gets a face transplant. The operation appears successful!

From AP:

DOCS 'TOTALLY STUPEFIED' BY SUCCESS OF FACE TRANSPLANT

Too early to say: But it will be another six months before the patient's nerves begin to regenerate

By Emma Ross

The Associated Press

LYON, France - Before her operation, she couldn't chew her food. She had trouble speaking. Whenever she took a drink, most of the liquid dribbled from her mouth. Worst of all, her face was hideous. She wore a surgical mask every time she left her house.

Six days ago, she got a new face.

The results of the daring nose, lips and chin transplant - the first ever attempted - were beyond what the surgeons had hoped for. The new face bore an uncanny resemblance to the woman's former face. ''Marvelous,'' one doctor said.

The physicians described the operation in a news conference Friday. Their patient, a 38-year-old divorced mother, who doesn't want her identity known, had been mauled in June by her dog. The Labrador retriever mix, adopted from a rescue shelter, had ripped off the lower half of her face.

Her first look at the transplant came when a psychiatrist gave her a mirror. Unable to speak because of the breathing tube in her throat, the patient wrote a note, ''Merci.'' Thank you. Then she cried and so did one of her surgeons.

Conventional reconstructive surgery may have been an option, but it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to restore not only her appearance, but also basic functions, her doctors said.

Bernard Devauchelle said his team of surgeons was ''totally stupefied'' by how perfectly the transplant was integrated into her face in terms of the color and the thickness of the skin.

The woman already has some mobility in the new tissue. She can eat, drink and speak clearly, Devauchelle said. But it will be another six months before the nerves start to regenerate. It's too early to tell how natural the transplant will look, but the doctors said they were optimistic.

The biggest hurdle now is the body's acceptance of the transplant. The woman must take drugs for the rest of her life to prevent her immune system from rejecting the tissue.

It's still possible that the surgery will fail, that the new tissue on her face might die and turn black, even months later. In that case, reconstructive surgery or a new transplant would be needed.

In an effort to keep her body from rejecting the new tissue, the doctors infused the woman with stem cells taken from the bone marrow of the donor.

[Jim Alfredson]

It's pretty amazing. I was watching the CBS news last night and they reported this and said that the knowledge and technology to do this has been there for years, but that there have been "ethical" hurdles to overcome.

Ethical hurdles!? If you can transplant a heart or liver or kidney, why not a face? This poor woman was not able to lead any semblence of a normal life. Why not let the doctors do this for her?

I guess I don't understand any ethical concerns.

[catesta]

I would like to have seen the before and after pics.

Edited December 3, 2005 by catesta

[couw]

I guess I don't understand any ethical concerns.

well, it would be very awkward to run into someone wearing the face of your deceased beloved.

[rostasi]

Wait...they can take the face from a dead person

and transplant it?

[couw]

Wait...they can take the face from a dead person

and transplant it?

I bet your criminal mind is already overheating thinking of the evil possibilities this offers.

[rostasi]

Wait...they can take the face from a dead person

and transplant it?

I bet your criminal mind is already overheating thinking of the evil possibilities this offers.

No, actually it's my primeval mind that's trying to wrap itself around this concept.

[Aggie87]

It's pretty amazing. I was watching the CBS news last night and they reported this and said that the knowledge and technology to do this has been there for years, but that there have been "ethical" hurdles to overcome.

Ethical hurdles!? If you can transplant a heart or liver or kidney, why not a face? This poor woman was not able to lead any semblence of a normal life. Why not let the doctors do this for her?

I guess I don't understand any ethical concerns.

I tend to agree with you, though I think the ethical concerns may be more about the necessity of the operation, as I've read. Some of the concerns are that this wasn't being done as a live-saving procedure for this lady, but rather for cosmetic purposes (I'll also grant that everything I've read makes it sound as if she was VERY disfigured by her attack, and I can't imagine how terrible that must have been).

I think the arguments stem from where you draw the line regarding cosmetic facial transplants. Perhaps what's acceptable will evolve over time too.

My concern, even though the actual operation itself was a success, is whether her body will accept/reject the new face over the long term. What happens if it falls off in 5 yrs, if these things prove not to be permanent?

[JSngry]

My concern, even though the actual operation itself was a success, is whether her body will accept/reject the new face over the long term. What happens if it falls off in 5 yrs, if these things prove not to be permanent?

Thus the ongoing Japanese concern over losing face...

[catesta]

I guess I don't understand any ethical concerns.

well, it would be very awkward to run into someone wearing the face of your deceased beloved.

I didn't even think of that.

[JSngry]

Yeah, can you imagine killing your wife, beating the rap, and then seeing her walking down the street a few months later? What would you do? Kill her again due to a no-doubt legit case of temporary insanity? And what if you didn't beat the rap the second time? Hard time, thanks to a medical science and a bitch from whom there was no escape.

I ask you ladies and gentlemen - is that justice?

[GregN]

I guess I don't understand any ethical concerns.

well, it would be very awkward to run into someone wearing the face of your deceased beloved.

I didn't even think of that.

According to an article I recently read it doesn't really work that way. Facial features come mostly, if not entirely, from the boney structure, etc.. So, they wont look like the deceased. (Unless of course they just happened to have the same exact facial structure)

The movie Face Off, aside from sucking, was inaccurate.

g

[Jim Alfredson]

That is exactly right. Your facial features do not come from the skin, they come from the shape of your bones, how the muscles lay on those bones, etc. The skin has very very little to do with it. So the person will not look like the donor.

As far as it being strictly cosmetic, read the article. She couldn't even take a drink. Imagine trying to hold in liquid in your mouth without any lips. I also heard on CBS last night that people with badly disfigured faces like hers eventually lose all their teeth from rot, since there is nothing protecting them from the elements. So this wasn't just a cosmetic surgery.

[Chuck Nessa]

According to an article I recently read it doesn't really work that way. Facial features come mostly, if not entirely, from the boney structure, etc.. So, they wont look like the deceased. (Unless of course they just happened to have the same exact facial structure)

The movie Face Off, aside from sucking, was inaccurate.

g

GregN intorduces useless facts. We don't need stuff like that in a thread like this. Bones, Schmones. Let us all have our fantasy scenes.

[rostasi]

EEEEEEWWWWWWW!

[maren]

That is exactly right. Your facial features do not come from the skin, they come from the shape of your bones, how the muscles lay on those bones, etc. The skin has very very little to do with it. So the person will not look like the donor.

As far as it being strictly cosmetic, read the article. She couldn't even take a drink. Imagine trying to hold in liquid in your mouth without any lips. I also heard on CBS last night that people with badly disfigured faces like hers eventually lose all their teeth from rot, since there is nothing protecting them from the elements. So this wasn't just a cosmetic surgery.

You're right -- the real ethical concern in this particular case was whether the transplant would completely fail, which would leave the woman in even worse shape, no longer able to get the patchwork-skin-graft halfway measures that doctors would otherwise have used, likely hastening her death. But my understanding is that they fully explained this risk to her, and she chose to proceed. Some might say she was too depressed or distraught to give real consent -- but IMO that sounds like a rational reaction to losing half your face -- "go for it, cuz if it doesn't work I'd rather be dead."

[catesta]

Did anyone hear stories that this woman tried to commit suicide twice BEFORE the dog attacked her?

I even read stories that the dog was actually trying to revive her after she overdosed on sleeping pills.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article331059.ece

[brownie]

From the AP:

TRANSPLANT DOC DENIES WOMAN TRIED SUICIDE

By Angela Doland and Jamey Keaten, Associated Press Writers

The French doctor behind the world's first partial face transplant insisted Monday that his patient did not try to kill herself before being mauled by her dog — even as a British newspaper quoted her as saying she had.

The apparent contradiction was just one of the mysteries surrounding last week's groundbreaking operation that grafted a nose, chin and lips onto a 38-year-old woman whose face had been severely disfigured by her pet Labrador.

In her hometown, neighbors said the mother of two teenage daughters generally kept to herself before the surgery and wore a surgical mask to hide her face when she walked her new dog.

The case has raised questions about the ethics of performing such surgery on someone who may have suffered psychological troubles in the past.

London's Sunday Times reported the woman acknowledged in a cell phone interview that she took an overdose of sleeping pills during a fit of depression this spring. That night, she was mauled by her own Labrador, in circumstances still unclear.

The woman said the reason for her suicide attempt was "secret," according to the newspaper, whose account was sharply contested by transplant surgeon Jean-Michel Dubernard, who was in charge of one of the two teams that carried out the procedure Nov. 27.

"She did not try to commit suicide, I have had to say this 10 times," Dubernard told The Associated Press by telephone. He declined to let AP speak to the woman.

"She is fine — perfect," he said. "Good general condition, graft looking perfect, psychology — OK."

Dubernard said the woman has not been paid for telling her story but he conceded a British news organization that he did not name paid $3,530 to one of her daughters for a picture of her before the mauling.

The surgeon, who also led teams that performed a hand transplant in 1998 and the world's first double forearm transplant in 2000, said the woman would receive royalties from selling images of her new face in a deal set up by one of his friends.

"I do not want photographers to make money off this poor lady," Dubernard said.

At a news conference Friday, Dubernard said the woman had taken a pill to try to sleep after a fight with one of her daughters. But he denied she tried to kill herself.

Doctors, citing French laws protecting the anonymity of patients, have refused to identify the patient.

The partial face was donated by the family of a woman who was declared brain dead. Her identity also has not been made public.

But the Sunday Times, citing unidentified doctors, said the donor was a 38-year-old woman who had hanged herself. Dubernard and French officials refused to discuss specifics.

"I don't see what the problem is, whether she was hit by a car or committed suicide," said Carine Camby, head of a Health Ministry agency that coordinates organ procurement. She refused to say how the donor died.

The transplant patient's severe facial injuries made it difficult for her to speak and eat, her doctors have said. But they have given conflicting information about when the mauling occurred: One statement from the hospital said May, another June.

Neighbors said the woman was an animal lover who bought a smaller dog after the attack. Her Labrador was put down.

Many in her modest housing complex of small, red-and-white apartment buildings in Marly, 120 miles northeast of Paris, did not realize the woman's face had been mutilated. They did not want to pry — and only learned of her story from news reports about the transplant.

"Every evening, I saw her out walking, wearing a mask," said Belgassem Kahouri, a 57-year-old neighbor. "I assumed she had an allergy or some problem breathing, maybe trouble with pollution."

Moossa al-Karkouri, a 20-year-old student, said: "She did not speak to people much, except maybe to say 'bonjour.'"

The patient's mother declined to be interviewed, saying she was overwhelmed by the attention to the case and worried about the effect it would have on her two granddaughters.

One of the patient's daughters reportedly told French media that the dog tried to wake her mother and had no intention of harming her — a scenario that a local dog trainer said was probable.

"The dog undoubtedly wanted to re-establish contact with his master, in any way he could," said Pascal Duplouy, who had no contact with the animal in question.

"When a dog is in a state of panic, it can scratch and scratch and scratch his master's face, to try to wake her, without realizing the harm it's doing," he said.

[brownie]

The woman faced the media today. Thought she was very brave:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/france_face_tra...zkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

From AP:

French Woman Shows Off Her New Face

The French woman who received the world's first partial face transplant showed off her new features in a room full of reporters and cameras on Monday.

"I now have a face like everyone else," Isabelle Dinoire said at her first news conference since the groundbreaking surgery in November.

Her speech was heavily slurred and difficult to understand as she explained how she was disfigured by a dog bite last year. She thanked the family of the donor who gave her new lips, a chin and nose.

Edited February 6, 2006 by brownie

[AllenLowe]

I'm thinking of Brad Pitt as a donor - but don't tell Angelina Jolie -

[birdanddizzy]

I don't know if it is correct to show his face...

Click here !!!