BMJ  2005;331:1359 (10 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7529.1359-c

News

Surgeons pleased with patient's progress after face transplant

Brad Spurgeon

Paris

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Less than a week after French doctors carried out the world's first partial face transplant on 27 November, the patient—a 38 year old woman—ate, drank, and spoke normally. Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, who led the transplant team, said that it would be at least six months before they knew how much feeling or motor control the patient would have eventually.

Doctors have been technically ready to do such surgery for some time but have held back for ethical reasons. Carine Camby, the director general of the agency of biomedicine, part of the health ministry that oversees organ donations, said that the patient passed the appropriate psychiatric examinations.

Professor Dubernard, who is a transplant surgeon at the Edouard-Herriott hospital in Lyon, said that his reservations about doing the transplant evaporated when he saw the extent of the woman's disfigurement, caused by her own dog biting her while she was unconscious. Tissue around . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relevant Article

Facial transplantation
Peter E M Butler, Alex Clarke, and Shehan Hettiaratchy
BMJ 2005 331: 1349-1350. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Freeman, M., Abou Jaoude, P. (2007). Justifying surgery's last taboo: the ethics of face transplants. J. Med. Ethics 33: 76-81 [Abstract] [Full text]  
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