Why bother ?
Posted on 11/30/2005 7:55:05 AM PST by COUNTrecount
The world's first partial face transplant has been performed on a 38-year-old French woman, whose lips and nose were ripped off in a dog attack, the surgeon who carried out the operation told AFP.
Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, the French surgeon who performed the world's first hand transplant in 1998, confirmed news reports that the transplant had taken place, without giving further details.
According to Thursday's issue of the French news magazine Le Point, a team of surgeons led by Dubernard and Professor Bernard Devauchelle carried out the operation on Sunday and Monday in the northern French town of Amiens.
In the high-risk operation, a triangle formed by the nose and mouth was grafted on to the patient, from the northern French town of Valenciennes, who was admitted to hospital in May, the weekly said.
The facial tissues, muscles, arteries and veins needed for the transplant were taken on Sunday from a donor in the northern city of Lille, who was in a brain-dead condition, according to Le Point.
Dubernard, a surgeon at the Edouard Herriot hospital in Lyon and a French deputy, performed the world's first hand transplant in September 1998, followed by the first double hand and forearm transplant in January 2000.
Devauchelle is a facial surgery specialist from the CHU university hospital in Amiens.
Why bother ?
If I were fench I would consider getting a face transplant too.
Maybe there is hope for Cindy Sheehan........or maybe not!
so the French are finally confirmed as being two-faced!
Partial face transplant? A recent documentary on the subject indicated that the French specialists rejected the concept of a full facial transplant in favor of a partial, which they thought had a better chance of success. Several US doctors are ready to do a full facial transplant on a severely burned woman.
They ought to be doing spine implants.
This is very good news for people with disfiguring injuries,esp burns.I read an article about this procedure a while back,and i was skeptical.
Let me guess: She wants to look like Michael Jackson?
I know of some GOP senators who could use one.
Glorified skin graft.
I don't see the big deal.
In a related development, French scientists are hopeful that a new experimental compound, tentatively dubbed "la deodorant," will be found to have some usefulness.
Once they get this perfected, maybe they can work on backbone, testacle and gut transplants in French males.
Very challenging skin graft. It's a lot more complicated than replacing burned skin on your arm. ie contours, bone structure, muscles, blood vessels... think about it.
Hey, how did she jump the line ahead of Helen Thomas?
I hope them great success.
It is unimagineable for me to put myself in the place of a burn victim. This could truly be a big step for a "normal" life.
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