First US face transplant procedure performed

[mkrishnan]

NYT:

Cleveland Clinic surgeons have performed the nation’s first near total face transplant, officials said on Tuesday. The patient is a woman who was not identified.

Three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China. All have involved using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.

The Cleveland surgical team, led by Dr. Maria Siemionow, said it had replaced about 80 percent of the patient’s face with that of a dead woman in the last two weeks. The doctors offered no details on the patient, but said they would discuss her surgery at a news conference on Wednesday.

Recent improvements in managing the care of transplant surgical patients, including the use of better anti-rejection drugs, have allowed doctors to forge into new areas of tissue transplants, including the hands and face.

Such transplants are experimental and highly controversial.

Hopefully it will turn out better than it did in Kobo Abe's novel.

Mildly creepy, but impressive, and, I guess, will hopefully really enhance this poor person's quality of life. What a sacrifice to make, to let someone else wear your face after you are done with it.

 

[iJohnHenry]

What a sacrifice to make, to let someone else wear your face after you are done with it.

I don't get that one, at all. Once you're dead, you're dead.

Not Christian, no problem.

Christian, still no problem. God can subdue all things unto Himself.

Now the living next-of-kin, I can see that being a BIG problem.

 

[themoonisdown09]

That would be weird to have a completely different face. It would be even weirder to be the next-of-kin to the person who donated the face, and seeing it on another person.

 

[iJohnHenry]

I'd be willing to bet that the recipient is disfigured beyond anything that we can imagine. And I have seen some of this with Cancer patients.

It would definitely be jarring to the next-of-kin, for sure.

 

[iBlue]

That would be weird to have a completely different face. It would be even weirder to be the next-of-kin to the person who donated the face, and seeing it on another person.

I can't imagine the similarity would be that uncanny. A person's eyes and bone structure play such a strong role in personal appearance, more so than the skin and tissues. Plus this isn't likely to be seamless, for lack of a better way of putting it. I wonder how well it "takes" and how she heals.

 

[xUKHCx]

That would be weird to have a completely different face. It would be even weirder to be the next-of-kin to the person who donated the face, and seeing it on another person.

The person will not look like the person who donated it (due to a difference in bone structure and muslce differences), or indeed their original selves (due to differences in skin tones and shapes).

 

[mkrishnan]

I wonder how well it "takes"

How well it takes is actually one of the biggest issues... the recipient has a lifelong risk of rejecting the tissue, although it can usually be managed with suppressants.

I doubt privacy laws would allow for disclosure of the donor and recipient or before/after pictures, but I'd be very curious also....

 

[Blue Velvet]

For those who are curious.

 

[themoonisdown09]

I'm guessing none of you have seen the movie Face/Off!!!

 

[iJohnHenry]

For those who are curious.

Love the pic on that page, bottom right.

Oh well, it could have been Tori Spelling.

 

[Abstract]

"Holy ****, I'm latino now! What an awesome tan I have now."


I think you'd look the same. Bone structure is everything. You may be a different skin tone, but that's it.

 

[aloofman]

I know a few people who I think should have new faces.

 

[william sire]

And I'm sure you as I did thought this was ridiculous when you saw that movie "Face Off" with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage.

 

[aloofman]

And I'm sure you as I did thought this was ridiculous when you saw that movie "Face Off" with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage.

Actually I was just thinking that it was a terrible movie.

 

[mkrishnan]

Actually I was just thinking that it was a terrible movie.

It's actually my prototype of the entire concept of bad movies.

At least in my allusion, I alluded to a highly prized piece of literary fiction....

 

[themoonisdown09]

It's actually my prototype of the entire concept of bad movies.

The movie is entertaining, but it's a little out there.

 

[QuantumLo0p]

Love the pic on that page, bottom right.

Oh well, it could have been Tori Spelling.

Before she was hit by the drunk driver and after she was hit...

 

[themoonisdown09]

Before she was hit by the drunk driver and after she was hit...

That's so sad.

 

[edesignuk]

That's so sad.

That really is

 

[Abstract]

I think there was a YouTube message from someone who looked similar after a car crash. She was hit by a drink driver, clearly suffered massive damage to the face, and had her face reconstructed.