First face transplant

French doctors claim to have completed the first face transplant on a 39-year-old woman whose face had been mangled in a dog attack. The partial transplant took place on Sunday at the Amiens University Hospital. Apparently, the surgeons replaced her nose, lips, and chin with the features of a brain-dead woman. Apparently, people are now pissed off about the surgery for various reasons. From the Associated Press:

Dr. Laurent Lantieri, an adviser to the French medical ethics panel, said the surgeons who operated violated the panel's advice because they failed to try reconstructive surgery first. He said a transplant donor was immediately sought without trying to repair the woman's face with more conventional surgery...

The panel had previously objected to full face transplants but said partial ones could be considered under strict circumstances, which included first trying normal surgery.

"The ethics committee said this kind of transplant should never be considered as an emergency procedure," Lantieri said.

However, surgeon Denys Pellerin, of the National Consultative Ethics Committee advised by Lantieri said, "as long as the transplant is not total, it is not unethical."

And Dr. Jean-Pierre Chavoin, secretary general of the French society of plastic surgery, noted that Lantieri had planned to do a face transplant himself and had been beaten.

Carine Camby, director general of the agency under the French Health Ministry that coordinates organ procurement, said normal reconstructive surgery could not have been used in this case.

"It is precisely because there was no way to restore the functions of this patient by normal plastic surgery that we attempted this transplant," Camby said. "She could no longer eat normally, she had great difficulty speaking and there is no possibility with plastic surgery today to repair the muscles around the mouth which allow people to articulate when they speak and not spit out food when they eat."

Link to CNN report about the surgery, Link to AP story about the ethics controversy, Link to previous BB post about face transplants