LONDON: British surgeons are preparing to carry out the first full-face transplants for patients who are seriously disfigured.

A team of clinicians is being assembled by experts at the Royal Free Hospital in north London, who claim that new microsurgical techniques have made it technically possible to graft a new face on to another person.

The prospect of facial transplantation, in which a patient would undergo at least 10 hours of surgery to receive new skin, bone, lips, chin, ears and nose from a donor, may seem more akin to a science fiction plot. In the film Face/Off, John Travolta, playing a special agent, and Nicolas Cage, a master criminal swap faces using laser technology. The plot revolves around their new identities.

But the proposals are likely to go out for nationwide consultation next summer, once surgeons have proved that it is anatomically feasible. Plans for facial transplantations could go ahead only with full public and government approval.

The technique — and the considerable ethical barriers it faces — will be debated for the first time at the British Association of Plastic Surgery conference on Wednesday, with surgeons arguing that it could transform the lives of those disfigured by cancer, accidents or burns.

If the public could be won over, the new procedure could be only 18 months away, according to Peter Butler, a plastic surgeon. Over the next six months, he is conducting a number of studies to show that, anatomically at least, the transplantation is possible.

Eight different blood vessels, four arteries and four veins, which provide the blood supply to the face, would have to be removed, or harvested, from the donor. A separate team of surgeons would remove, or “de-glove”, the face, facial muscles, skin and subcutaneous fat from the recipient.

Once they had the new face, they would begin to attach the nerves that control movement and feeling in the face. Without successful nerve regeneration, transplantation would be useless. The blood vessels would also be connected to the recipient’s vessels, with tiny, microscopic stitches.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.