Thursday, April 9, 2009

First full face transplant in France

Professor Laurent Lantieri, one of the leading French surgeon recently said how he effectively carried out a full face transplant after two operations in two weeks time. Professor Laurent Lantieri so far performed partial face transplants but this was first one full face transplant in the world.

Lantieri said how he and his team team in Paris transplanted the entire upper part of a man's face. This operation was performed on a 30-year-old man severely burned in a 2004 accident and face including the scalp, forehead, nose, ears and upper and lower eyelids was not only part of the body that was transplanted as hands were also transplanted at the same time.

The first partial face transplant was carried out by doctors in Amiens in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire, a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by her dog. She received a new nose, chin and lips but this operation was much more complex, and we can now talk about first full face transplants, and it were the French that team that did it first.

It has to be said that this operation is not a life saving one, it has to do more with aesthetics and person's appearance than with health reasons. There are significant hazards involved - the one of the biggest is definitely the side effects of the immuno-suppressant drugs that patients must take for the rest of their lives after such operation. It is really up to patient to decide what really matters him the most.


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