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Merci, first face transplant patient writes
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-03 14:51 Dubernard said the cost of the operation hasn't been calculated. It will be
paid for by the French government's tax-funded health system, as is most French
health care.
The groundbreaking and risky operation began at 12:30 a.m. Sunday at a
hospital in Amiens. One team of doctors traveled to Lille, another northern town
about 60 miles away, to collect the lips, nose and chin from the donor. The
brain-dead woman's family donated her facial tissue to the doctors and the rest
of her organs to other recipients.
Engineers designed a silicone prosthetic mask that was fitted to the donor's
face after the tissue was removed to try to restore the body to a more normal
appearance. The prosthetic had the same stiffness, color and shape as the
donor's face, the doctors said.
Another team of surgeons prepared the disfigured patient. They cut away the
fibrous tissue that had formed on her face since her accident.
When the transplant team arrived in Amiens, eight surgeons led by Dr. Bernard
Devauchelle sewed the blood vessels in the woman's face to those of the donor
tissue. They then connected the nerves and muscles, then sewed in the lining of
the mouth and the skin from the nose to the chin.
Four hours into the 15-hour operation, the blood was circulating normally
between the graft and the rest of the woman's face.
"When it was finished and we were washing the skin and applying the
dressings, there was a big silence in the operating room. We were all surprised
because the immediate result was completely outside our expectations 錕斤拷 it looked
marvelous," Lengele said.
"There is simply a small scar around the outside of the graft. All the other
scars are inside, in the mouth, in the nose. A small scar in the neck," he said.
Devauchelle said the team was "totally stupefied" by how perfectly the
transplant was integrated into her face in terms of the color and the thickness
of the skin.
The woman already has some mobility in the new tissue. She can eat, drink and
speak clearly, Devauchelle said. But it will be another six months before the
nerves start to regenerate. It's too early to tell how natural the transplant
will look, but the doctors said they were optimistic.
The biggest hurdle now is the body's acceptance of the transplant. The woman
must take drugs for the rest of her life to prevent her immune system from
rejecting the tissue. It's still possible that the surgery will fail, that the
new tissue on her face might die and turn black, even months later. In that
case, reconstructive surgery or a new transplant would be needed.
In an effort to keep her body from rejecting the new tissue, the doctors
infused the woman with stem cells taken from the bone marrow of the donor. They
hope that might make it possible to lower the dosage of anti-rejection drugs.
The woman is getting her main food pureed, but she has eaten chocolate and
strawberries, Testelin said. For now, she can only show her gratitude by smiling
with her eyes.
As for the dog that maimed her, the woman holds no grudge, Testelin said, as
the circumstances surrounding the injury remained cloudy Friday.
"She doesn't blame the dog," the doctor said. "The dog liked her. He tried to
wake her up, or whatever. I was not there. It was no more than an accident, and
she thinks like that."
Dubernard denied a French media report that the woman was attacked by the dog
after she had passed out from taking pills in a suicide attempt. Instead, he
said, the woman had taken a pill to try to sleep after a confrontation with one
of her two teenage daughters and was bitten by the dog during the night.
The dog was euthanized, but since then, the patient has acquired a new dog,
Testelin said.
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