Brigham and Women’s Hospital was given permission by the New England Organ Bank to be the first facility in the United States to perform partial face transplants on eligible patients whose faces have been disfigured.

To be eligible, recipients will have to be kidney transplant patients who have suffered facial burns, trauma, or skin cancer that has left them with severe facial disfigurement. Also, recipients will have to follow a powerful treatment before the transplant. This treatment will prevent their immune system from rejecting the donor’s tissue, which could expose the patient to infections and cancer.

“We want to be very careful and thoughtful about whom we select as a patient. We want this to be successful. If something goes wrong, it could set us back 10 years,” Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a plastic surgeon who leads the Birgham program said quoted by the Boston Globe.

According to experts, finding suitable donors is a challenging issue.

“There need to be certain amount of matching between the donor and the recipient. Not everyone who is a potential organ donor can be a face donor. For example, you need to be about plus or minus 10 years in age. (There) needs to be a reasonable match in color and complexion,” explained Richard Luskin, president of the New England Organ Bank.

French surgeon Dr. Jean-Michel Dubenard performed the first procedure of this kind in 2005, on a woman who was severely mauled by her dog. He transferred the muscle tissue of an organ donor the the woman, giving her a new chin, nose and lips. The woman is currently having a new life being able to speak, eat, and drink.