Tuesday, April 26, 2011
BOSTON (CBS) – Surgeons at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have given a soldier from Indiana a new face.
30-year-old Army Private Mitch Hunter of Indianapolis was left severely disfigured after saving a woman’s life during a car accident ten years ago. He pushed a live wire off her and suffered a severe shock. It left him with a severely scarred face, a prosthetic nose and leg.
A team of more than 30 physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists and residents worked for more than 14 hours to replace Hunter’s face last week...[Full Article]
Labels: face transplant, medical technology
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
CNN
Dallas Wiens may soon be able to kiss his daughter, Scarlette, again, now that he has become only the second person in the world to receive a full face transplant.
The 25-year-old Wiens, who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, received the new face at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital last week, when a family donated a loved one's tissue for the transplant surgery. The forehead, nasal structure, nose, lips, facial skin and underlying muscles and nerves that allow Wiens to move his face and have sensations were transplanted. The hospital would not reveal the actual surgery date to protect the privacy of the donor family.
"Dallas was injured in November 2008 when his face got too close to high-voltage line while on the job," Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, Brigham and Women's Burn Unit director, told reporters Monday. "He sustained devastating injury leaving him with bare bones instead of face."
Dallas Wiens before his surgery
Pomahac said the purpose of the full face transplant is to restore "human appearance and function." After his face healed from the accident, Wiens' only facial trait was his mouth. Once his new face heals, he will not look like himself, nor will he look like the donor because the new tissue will mold to the young man's remaining tissue and bones.
Wiens' grandfather, who is with his grandson in Boston right now, calls the surgery a miracle. He says after his grandson was so seriously injured, he did not know what would happen. His grandson, he says, is determined to "get well and move on with his life and make something of his life." Wiens has been walking and talking to his family in Texas by phone. Doctors expect he will be eating on his own soon...[Full Article]
Labels: face transplant, medical technology
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
A Spanish farmer given the world’s first full facial transplant appeared in public for the first time Monday as he was discharged from the hospital to start a new life.
Oscar, 31, who did not reveal his full identity, was unable to eat, speak or breathe normally since he was disfigured in a gun accident in 2005. The operation four months ago has enabled him to eat soft foods, drink liquids and to shave again.
SLIDESHOW: Face Transplant Patient Goes Public
Appearing at a press conference at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona where he underwent surgery, he spoke with difficulty just two months after regaining his voice, “I am very happy and I want to thank the surgeons and the donors especially the man who gave me the new tissues I received.”...
Labels: face transplant, technology
Thursday, July 8, 2010
French doctors have carried out a successful full-face transplant -- eyelids, tear ducts and all -- on a 35-year-old man, the hospital where the operation took place confirmed on Thursday.
Doctors carried out the 12-hour operation June 26 and 27 on a patient -- identified only as "Jerome" -- afflicted with a face-disfiguring genetic disorder.
The head surgeon, Laurent Lantieri, described the surgery as a world first because it included a difficult and unprecedented transplant of tear ducts and eyelids...
Labels: face transplant, medical technology
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Barely living: An MRI image showing the ravaged face of a man who accidentally blew his jaw, mouth and nose away with a shotgun. He has since become the first person in the world to undergo a full facial transplant
The nose is gone, the jaw has been blown away, and where the mouth should be there is only a gaping hole and scar tissue.
This is a Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) of the young man who made medical history last month when he became the first person in the world to undergo a full facial transplant - taken before his life-changing surgery.
Before the operation, described as the ‘holy grail of plastic surgery’, the man, a farmer in his 30s, was unable to breathe, swallow or talk properly.
He accidentally blew most of his face off, including his nose and jaw, with a gun five years ago.
Nine earlier surgical attempts to rebuild his face had failed.
A handful of partial transplants have been carried out since Isabelle Dinoire had her face repaired by French surgeons in 2005.
But until now, no one has had the skill or courage to replace an entire face.
The 24-hour operation involved 30 surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and other medical experts at the Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona.
The man, who has not been named, received new facial muscles, skin, nose, lips, jaw, teeth, palate and cheekbones.
The full-face transplant operation took place on March 20 but details have only just been made public...
Labels: face transplant, medical science
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