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BBC MUNDO RADIO
(April 22) -- Surgeons in Barcelona, Spain, have completed the world's first full face transplant, only five years after a woman in France became the first to undergo a partial version of the procedure.
The Spanish patient has not been identified, but doctors say he is a young man who was severely injured in an accident five years ago and left unable to breathe independently, speak or swallow.
A team of 30 surgeons at Vall d'Hebron Hospital performed the grueling procedure, which took 24 hours and entailed the reconstruction of the man's entire face, including skin, bone structure, muscle tissue and even teeth.
The parts were donated by another unnamed man, who'd been killed in a car accident days before the March 20 surgery.
Doctors anticipate that their patient will eventually live a relatively normal life, other than taking immunosuppressant drugs daily to keep his body from rejecting the transplant.
"The patient has scars on his forehead and his neck, but they will become invisible in the future," Dr. Joan Pere Barret, one of the surgeons who performed the operation, said at a press conference today. "Within a few weeks he should begin to talk and eat as well as smiling and laughing."
The patient has already seen his new face, albeit after first undergoing psychological evaluation.
Experts from the United Kingdom are applauding the landmark procedure, which comes after 11 partial face transplants have been successfully performed around the world -- including three at the same hospital where this latest took place.
"This operation once again shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people, for whom reconstructive surgery has not worked and for whom the quality of life is indescribably poor," Professor Peter Butler, head of the U.K.'s Facial Transplantation Research Team, told the Daily Telegraph.
Butler hopes the British team will be ready to perform its own full face transplant within a year.
Candidates for face transplants are those whose injuries are too serious for reconstructive surgery. In this case, the young man had undergone nine unsuccessful procedures before doctors decided to attempt a full transplant.
Although the new face won't be a mirror image of the patient's former one, doctors do take pains to create resemblance. Still, adjusting to a reconstructed visage can be a difficult psychological process, especially because the results are far from Hollywood glamour.
"Eventually, and this may take many years, identity and appearance become concordant," notes the U.K.'s Face Trust. "Popular films such as 'Face Off' do not help in their wildly inaccurate portrayal of probable outcome, not least the complete ignorance of basic anatomy and wound healing."
The Spanish patient has not been identified, but doctors say he is a young man who was severely injured in an accident five years ago and left unable to breathe independently, speak or swallow.
A team of 30 surgeons at Vall d'Hebron Hospital performed the grueling procedure, which took 24 hours and entailed the reconstruction of the man's entire face, including skin, bone structure, muscle tissue and even teeth.
EPA / Zuma Press
This computer-generated image provided by the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, depicts part of a surgery in which a patient received a complete face transplant. Doctors expect him to be able to live a normal life.
The parts were donated by another unnamed man, who'd been killed in a car accident days before the March 20 surgery.
Doctors anticipate that their patient will eventually live a relatively normal life, other than taking immunosuppressant drugs daily to keep his body from rejecting the transplant.
"The patient has scars on his forehead and his neck, but they will become invisible in the future," Dr. Joan Pere Barret, one of the surgeons who performed the operation, said at a press conference today. "Within a few weeks he should begin to talk and eat as well as smiling and laughing."
The patient has already seen his new face, albeit after first undergoing psychological evaluation.
Experts from the United Kingdom are applauding the landmark procedure, which comes after 11 partial face transplants have been successfully performed around the world -- including three at the same hospital where this latest took place.
"This operation once again shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people, for whom reconstructive surgery has not worked and for whom the quality of life is indescribably poor," Professor Peter Butler, head of the U.K.'s Facial Transplantation Research Team, told the Daily Telegraph.
Butler hopes the British team will be ready to perform its own full face transplant within a year.
Candidates for face transplants are those whose injuries are too serious for reconstructive surgery. In this case, the young man had undergone nine unsuccessful procedures before doctors decided to attempt a full transplant.
Although the new face won't be a mirror image of the patient's former one, doctors do take pains to create resemblance. Still, adjusting to a reconstructed visage can be a difficult psychological process, especially because the results are far from Hollywood glamour.
"Eventually, and this may take many years, identity and appearance become concordant," notes the U.K.'s Face Trust. "Popular films such as 'Face Off' do not help in their wildly inaccurate portrayal of probable outcome, not least the complete ignorance of basic anatomy and wound healing."
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