PARIS, Nov 30: Surgeons in France said on Wednesday they had performed the world’s first face transplant on a 38-year-old French woman who lost much of her lower face in a dog attack.
In the pioneering procedure carried out on Sunday, a triangle formed by the nose, mouth and chin was transplanted onto the patient, who was described as ‘in excellent condition’ by the two hospitals that carried out the operation.
“At this point, the patient is in excellent general condition and the appearance of the transplant is normal,” a statement said.
Prof Jean-Michel Dubernard, who performed the world’s first hand transplant in 1998, led the team of surgeons along with Professor Bernard Devauchelle, a French oral-facial specialist.
Prof Dubernard confirmed that the transplant had successfully gone ahead, without giving further details.
According to the hospital statement, the high-risk transplant was carried out by a team led by Devauchelle, at the university hospital in the northern French town of Amiens.
Earlier on Sunday, the facial tissues, muscles, arteries and blood veins needed for the transplant were taken from a donor in the northern city of Lille.
The family of the donor, who was in a brain-dead condition, had given the authorisation for the procedure to go ahead, the statement said.
The patient will have to take immunosuppressant drugs to prevent her body from rejecting the donated tissue, and will remain under Dubernard’s supervision at the university hospital in the central-eastern city of Lyon.—AFP
