Cleveland Clinic To Attempt First Face Transplant

Filed in archive Other Biotechnology News on September 21, 2005

"For 10 years now, it could have been done," said Dr. John Barker, director of plastic surgery research at the University of Louisville.

In the next few weeks, people with severly disfigured faces will be screened by Dr. Maria Siemionow for a chance for an operation that has neer been done before: a face transplant (reminds you of John Travolta in Face-off, doesn't it?). Basically, it's just a skin graft, utilizing skin from a dead cadaver, possibly from LifeBanc, an organ procurement agency. An excerpt from the AP news report describes the procedure in brief:

Your face will be removed and replaced with one donated from a cadaver, matched for tissue type, age, sex and skin color. Surgery should last 8 to 10 hours; the hospital stay, 10 to 14 days.

Complications could include infections that turn your new face black and require a second transplant or reconstruction with skin grafts. Drugs to prevent rejection will be needed lifelong, and they raise the risk of kidney damage and cancer.

After the transplant you might feel remorse, disappointment, or grief or guilt toward the donor. The clinic will try to shield your identity, but the press likely will discover it.

Naturally, there are ethical questions. Bioethicist Carson Strong at the University of Tennessee says:

"It would leave the patient with an extensive facial wound with potentially serious physical and psychological consequences."

But when Siemionow brought in photographs of potential patients, she won the approval of the 13-member Institutional Review Board. Board vice chariman Dr. Alan Lichtin, said he was struck by "the failure of the present state of the art to help these people" and decided he didn't want to deprive the surgeon or patients of the chance.

More information on University of Louisville face transplant can be found here.

Image Credits: http://www.plasticsurgeryresearch.louisville.edu