- Title: FRANCE: Partial face transplant performed in France
- Date: 24th January 2007
- Summary: (W1) PARIS, FRANCE (JANUARY 23, 2007) (REUTERS) SURGEON LAURENT LANTIERI ARRIVING IN CORRIDOR OF HENRI MONDOR HOSPITAL SURROUNDED BY REPORTERS REPORTERS AND PAN TO LAURENT LANTIERI AT PODIUM CONFERENCE ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (French) PROFESSOR LAURENT LANTIERI SAYING : "The operation lasted 15 hours and was difficult. The patient is currently doing well from a surgical point of view because we re-connected the arteries and the veins, they are functioning well, we re-connected the facial nerves to allow the motor function and now we will have to wait many months to see the result." REPORTERS STANDING (SOUNDBITE) (French) PROFESSOR LAURENT LANTIERI SAYING : "Today, the patient is doing well, but tomorrow he can severely reject, after tomorrow maybe some nerves from the transplant will not grow and maybe at the end he will not psychologically tolerate the result even though morphologically speaking it is excellent. And then we will have an answer. Maybe he will do extremely well, the morphological result will be perfect, socially speaking, he will be really well integrated but the treatment will be so heavy that for him it will be unbearable." PROFESSOR LAURENT LANTIERI WITH REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROFESSOR LAURENT LANTIERI SAYING : "He could barely speak, he had large difficulty to speak. When he was eating he was drooping and he had to push his lips up and it was very difficult for him. But the main thing he could have a normal social relation with anybody, he was brilliant, he was intelligent, he could perfectly assume this kind of surgery and that's why he went to it. He knew the risks and the benefits, he knew he could die of it and he went through it." REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROFESSOR LAURENT LANTIERI SAYING : "This patient has had neurofibromatosis and the fibroma that involved all the lower part of a face and the lower part of the face was completely destroyed by this benign tumour and we had to remove all this part of the face which are the lips, nose and part of the cheeks. The only way we could reconstructed correctly was to do a face transplant."
- Embargoed: 8th February 2007 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: Health
- Reuters ID: LVA2VZE7DD9SAHDG6F3IURO3SND8
- Story Text: Doctors carried out a partial face transplant on a 29-year-old man with a disfiguring disease, the second such operation performed in France. STORY : A 29-year-old man with a disfiguring disease has become the third person to have a partial face transplant, the second such operation performed in France in just over a year, doctors said on Tuesday (January 23).
The man, who was not named, suffered from von Recklinghausen disease, an illness that deforms the face, and was given a new nose, mouth and chin. Pictures of him were not released.
A team of doctors in the Val-de-Marne near Paris carried out the 15-hour operation on Sunday (January 21).
"The operation lasted 15 hours and was difficult. The patient is currently doing well from a surgical point of view because we re-connected the arteries and the veins, they are functioning well, we re-connected the facial nerves to allow the motor function and now we will have to wait many months to see the result", Laurent Lantieri, the surgeon who led the operation, told a news conference.
However, Lantieri added that even though he was doing well, circumstances could change in the next few days.
"Today, the patient is doing well, but tomorrow he can severely reject, after tomorrow maybe some nerves from the transplant will not grow and maybe at the end he will not psychologically tolerate the result even though morphologically speaking it is excellent. And then we will have an answer. Maybe he will do extremely well, the morphological result will be perfect, socially speaking, he will be really well integrated but the treatment will be so heavy that for him it will be unbearable", he said, highlighting the danger that the patient's body would reject the new face.
Lantieri said that his lesion was as bad as the so-called Elephant Man's, referring to a celebrated case in Victorian Britain whose head ballooned outwards until until his skull was wider than his waist.
"He could barely speak, he had large difficulty to speak. When he was eating he was drooping and he had to push his lips up and it was very difficult for him. But the main thing he could have a normal social relation with anybody, he was brilliant, he was intelligent, he could perfectly assume this kind of surgery and that's why he went to it. He knew the risks and the benefits, he knew he could die of it and he went through it", said Lantieri.
The world's first partial face transplant was carried out on French woman Isabelle Dinoire in November 2005 after she was disfigured in an attack by her own dog.
In April last year, Chinese doctors said they had also performed a partial face transplant on a 30-year-old who was attacked by a bear. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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