Face transplants coming soon

Main Category: Transplants / Organ Donations
Article Date: 15 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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Society may not be quite ready for face transplants - but that day is coming.

Such an operation would give new life to someone severely disfigured by burns, cancer or an accident, allowing the person to exist free of the stares and shock their appearance can evoke.

The procedure would be more straightforward than the many reconstructive surgeries such victims usually must endure.

Doctors at the University of Louisville in Kentucky (USA) say they hope to soon select a candidate for the operation, possibly within the year.

The same team performed the first U.S. hand transplant (and second in the world) in 1999. Surgeons in other countries are pursuing the possibility of a face transplant as well. All agree it's only a matter of time.

The technical skills needed for the surgery are well-established. Organs routinely are transplanted from one person to another, and even some limb transplants have been successful. Those operations, once remarkable, have become almost commonplace.

But an internal organ, or even a hand, is dramatically different from the wholesale appearance change that surgeons are considering, the Louisville surgeons acknowledge.

Faces are the most visible portion of human identities. They're how we think of ourselves, how others recognize us. The possibility of altering that identity so radically - a science-fiction plot device made real - could make people recoil, perhaps eroding support for the operation.

Plans stalled in Britain

In Britain, reservations from the medical community have stalled plans indefinitely. The Kentucky team is exploring ethical arguments for and against the procedure, using studies and surveys to gauge likely public reaction.

'As for surgical technique, a face transplant could have been done 10 years ago,' said Dr. John Barker, director of research for the surgeons' group. 'And now with the preliminary results we have in our ethics studies, we think it's time.'

Public acceptance is not the only roadblock. Many doctors remain unconvinced of the medical need for the operation, questioning whether the risks of the surgery outweigh its potential value.

A face recipient would need to take powerful medications for the remainder of his or her life to prevent rejection by the body. He or she also would face the possibility that the transplant would fail.

And then there's the unknown psychological effect of having one's cardinal form of identity, even if disfigured, so wholly transformed.

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001858331_face15.html

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