LittleMilkJug

Cleveland Clinic plans first facial transplant
Tuesday, November 2, 2004 Posted: 12:41 AM EST (0541 GMT)


CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- The Cleveland Clinic says it is the first institution to receive review board approval of human facial transplant for someone severely disfigured by burns or disease.

Several independent medical teams around the world also are pursuing the procedure. The Cleveland Clinic said its approval on October 15 followed 10 months of debate on medical, ethical and psychological issues.

It has no current patients or donors for the procedure.

"We are at this point ready to begin screening patients," said Dr. Maria Siemionow, the hospital's director of plastic surgery research and training in microscopic surgery, who advocated the procedure.

Doctors at the clinic said finding an appropriate donor cadaver for the facial skin and underlying tissue might be more difficult than choosing a patient, which could take up to two years.

"It may not happen in our life, or it may happen sooner than you expect," Siemionow said.

She said she will tell patients there is as much as a 50 percent chance of failure because of tissue rejection or other complications.

A central question in debate over the procedure has been whether patients should be subjected to risks of transplant failure and life-threatening complications from anti-rejection drugs for an operation that is not lifesaving.

Siemionow said she wants to start with a relatively simple procedure that would involve transplanting only the skin and underlying fat. The patient's own muscles shape the face, so the patient would not take on the appearance of the donor, she said.

Current facial reconstructive surgery uses skin grafts and flaps -- tissue containing blood vessels -- from other parts of a patient's body. The result "following major trauma, burns and tumor resections has been, at best, mediocre," Dr. Graham Lister, a retired professor of plastic surgery and a mentor of Siemionow's, wrote on her behalf to the clinic review board.


I'm all for medical advancement but this just makes me go "EWWWWWWWWW"!

I'm Not Your Boy Toy

scary.

*Ledi*

holy.........

Rivulet027

this made me think about class a few days ago. We were studying the nervous system.

The teacher told us a story of a guy who lost his hands. Apparenlty someone else died and he was an organ donor so they grafted his hands one the guy that lost his hands...the wonder of the nervous system within about six months he had working hands. She said he had them for several years before he asked for them to be cut off cause he didn't feel like they were his own.

Yea okay, so the first intial reation is ewwww, but if it helps someone live a more productive life then....

I'm Not Your Boy Toy

i get worried when we start playin God. and it goes farther than transplants...im talkin cloning

Katis

I don't know. I think this is a good thing if they can improve the anti-rejection drugs and stuff. It would have to be incredibly hard to live with serious facial scarring or burning. My mom's face is moderately scarred from a car accident when she was 16. I wouldn't call them disfiguring, and she has all her facial features, just with scars on them. She is really self-conscious about them though. I mean she had students that have called her scarface, and her's are in no way severe. People are mean, if this could help people deal with the looks, the stares, the rude comments and all the psychological damage that comes from it...well good. We just need to make sure it's safe.

Jennifer ~*Justified1/2*~

Thats good to hear, I've seen alot of people walking down the streets with burn marks and theres nothing to help them.

The Daywalker

Can i have Denzel's face?

Elizabeth1986

That's really interesting. I wonder what else they'll plan now.

Mio

next it's going to be brain transplants. someone may end up with a killers brain.

I'm Not Your Boy Toy

thatd be a good movie

nutty_maddie

That would be!