Two studies published in the journal The Lancet suggest that
face transplants are no longer oddities and people with severe facial
disfigurement should consider them more often.
The studies were based on two surgeries undergone by two
men, a Chinese man after a bear tore off part of his face and a
French-Caribbean man disfigured by neurofibroma (a massive tumor growing on his
facial nerves). Both surgeries proved to be successful.
Shuzhong Guo of the Institute
of Plastic Surgery, Xijing Hospital
and Fourth Military
Medical University
in Xi'an, lead
author of one of the studies, and colleagues said the 30-year-old Chinese man
was doing well two years after his surgery.
The man was attacked by a bear in October 2004 and received
a face transplant in April 2006 during which doctors reconstructed his veins
and arteries, his nose, lip, sinuses and other bony structures. There were two
episodes of acute tissue rejection at three, five and seventeen months after
transplantation but they were appropriately controlled by one of the
immunomodulatory drugs or by use of a steroid. His kidney and liver functioned
normally with no infections overall.
“This case suggests that facial transplantation might be an
option for restoring a severely disfigured face, and could enable patients to
readily reintegrate themselves back into society,” Shuzhong Guo said.
Laurent Lantieri in the department of plastic and
reconstructive surgery at CHU Henri Mondor in Creteil, lead author of the other study
published in The Lancet, said the 29-year-old French man is in “excellent” form
after a face transplant, which reconstructed his face after it was disfigured
by a rare tumor. The recovery still had two negative events in the sense that
his body rejected the transplanted tissue on day 28 and day 64 after the
surgery. But with special care and the appropriate medication, he gained his
smile back and he was able to begin full-time work as an accountant after 13
months after the surgery.
“Our case confirms that face transplantation is surgically
feasible and effective for the correction of specific disfigurement,” Dr.
Laurent Lantieri and colleagues wrote in their study.
Just these two men and French women Isabelle Dinoire have
received face transplants. The latter had the surgery in November 2005 after her
dog disfigured her. She overcame two episodes of rejection, but eighteen moths
after the transplant she was able to eat, drink and smile again.
Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard, of the E Herriot
University Lyon I Hospital,
France, and Dr. Bernand
Devauchelle, of the Amiens-Nord University Hospital, Amiens, France, welcomed
the studies saying that such surgeries could benefit people suffering from
trauma, malformations, benign tumors, burns but cooperation between the
pioneering teams responsible for these operations is necessary “to answer the
many technical, functional, immunological, and psychological questions raised
by face transplantation.”