Apr 10, 2009 3:55 pm US/Eastern
Face Transplant Performed At Brigham And Women's
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Surgeons at
Brigham and Womens Hospital performed a partial face transplant Thursday, the hospital announced Friday.
THE PROCEDURE
It's just the second such procedure to be performed in the U.S.
The team led by
Dr. Bohdan Pomahac "worked for 17 hours in replacing the mid-face area of the patient including the nose, hard palate, upper lip, facial skin, muscles of facial animation and the nerves that power them and provide sensation," according to the hospital.
During an afternoon news conference with all of the doctors involved, a video was shown explaining the procedure using a skull replica to demonstrate.
Watch:
Pomahac's demonstration of the procedure
THE PATIENT
Officials say the patient wants to remain anonymous and will not attend the news conference. Pomahac said the patient has not seen his new face but likely will over the next few days.
In a phone interview with the Associated Press Friday, Dr. Pomahac said the man's injury occurred in a freak accident several years ago, and it left him with "no teeth, no palate, no nose, no lip."
"It was difficult for him to speak, to eat, to drink. It certainly caused a lot of social problems," Pomahac said.
The man had been Pomahac's patient for a long time, and doctors decided to pursue a face transplant because previous attempts to treat him left him still badly deformed.
THE DONOR
It took three months to find a suitable donor, who also provided some organs for transplant in other patients, Pomahac said.
The name of the donor is also not being released.
Pomahac said finding a donor can be a very tedious task.
"We consider age, sex and skin color for a match. We have also done research on identity issues, and we found that the identity really doesn't get transferred from the donor to the recipient," Pomahac explained. "There is really not a significant risk of recognizing the donor on the new patient."
Pomahac added, "I never met the patient before he had the injuries, so I don't have a clear understanding of how he used to look. But based on our research we performed there is an average 60 percent chance the patient will look they way they used to look. That may differ with other types of face transplantation."
THE SURGERY
The operation began at 1:15 a.m. Thursday, with the recipient and the donor in operating rooms across the hall from each other.
The recipient was still recovering from anesthesia on Friday.
"He was incredibly motivated to go forward with it," and was extensively evaluated psychologically by doctors in and outside of Brigham, Pomahac said.
"We really made sure that nothing was left to chance."
The seven main surgeons and other assistants all donated their time and services, Pomahac said.
"This is a patient that we have known for a long time. We have prepared him for a long time. We are essentially taking a lifelong commitment to help him."
THE HISTORY
The first U.S. face transplant was done in December by doctors at Cleveland Clinic who replaced 80 percent of a woman's face with that of a female cadaver.
The woman's identity has not been revealed, nor the circumstances that led to the transplant, except that her injury occurred several years ago.
The woman left the Cleveland hospital in February, and her progress was described as astonishing by her doctors.
The Boston surgery is the world's seventh face transplant, as an operation once considered the stuff of science fiction is suddenly becoming more common.
Last weekend in Paris, doctors performed the world's first simultaneous face-and-hand transplant on a man who suffered severe burns.
In that case, doctors replaced the upper half of the man's face and both his hands, all the parts coming from a brain-dead donor.
French doctors also did the very first transplant, successfully performed in 2005 on a French woman.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Watch: Video Explainer Of Face Transplant
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