It has finally happened: medical science can now do a face transplant — giving an average person a new face:
The surgical team who performed the world’s first face transplant say the 15-hour operation has “far surpassed” its expectations.
Isabelle Dinoire, 38, lost her chin, lips and part of her nose when she was mauled by her labrador-cross at home in Valenciennes, northern France, in May. In addition to the skin, her surgeons restored veins, arteries, muscles and nerves – some the size of a “string on the end of a runner bean”.
The Telegraph story goes on to say this:
Bernard Devauchelle, who led the team, said it would take six months for Miss Dinoire to regain proper feeling and movement in her new face. Computer imaging indicates that she will not resemble her donor – an unidentified brain-dead woman – but will be a hybrid of the two.
Prof Devauchelle said: “She will have to reappropriate her face. She is doing well, physically, immunologically and psychologically.”
Doctors bandaged Miss Dinoire in such a way that she was unable to see the extent of her injuries during the seven months leading up to her operation at Amiens hospital.
Before the transplant she found it hard to breathe, eat or drink. Since the surgery, the divorced mother of two teenagers has been able to drink coffee and fruit juice, her doctors said.
The Daily Mail notes:
The world’s first face transplant recipient suffered her injuries after trying to commit suicide, her family claimed last night.
Isabelle Dinoir, 38, was disfigured when her dog tried to wake her after she took an overdose of sleeping pills, said her 17-year-old daughter.
She added: “We don’t know whether it bit or clawed her, but it managed to pull her awake. In a way, it was lucky for her that the dog was there.”
The revelation fuelled the ethical debate around the operation, which involved grafting the nose, lips and chin from a dead woman.
But it infuriated the medical team who carried it out in Amiens, northern France. Leading transplant surgeon Jean-Michel Dubernard insisted: “There was no suicide attempt.”
And now a British newspaper has even published a picture of her with her new face.
And some think it’ll start a trend, writes Med Page:
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 – Other transplant teams round the world will plunge ahead in the next 18 months with partial or full face transplants if the French woman who received a partial face graft does well, predicted a prominent New York surgeon.
Indeed, says surgeon Peter Costantino, M.D., of Roosevelt Hospital here, he and colleagues were preparing for a similar transplant until about eight months ago, but “the patient’s clinical situation changed and the transplant was no longer possible.”
But the surgery had been approved by the hospital, the government, and the state transplant society, and the medical team was beginning the process of obtaining donor tissue, said Dr. Costantino.
“If this French patient continues to do well,” Dr. Costantino said, “I anticipate that within six months of a year and a half, we’ll again go down that same road.” Already, he said, some patients have asked to be considered for transplant.
QUESTION: Now that medical science can give an average person one new face, will they also be able to give a politician two new ones?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, writes a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.