The first face transplant

Posted at 11:41 AM on December 16, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Health

This one takes some thinking. In Cleveland, it was announced today, doctors have performed the country's first near total face transplant

Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow replaced nearly all of the woman's face - 80 percent - with that of a dead female donor in an operation a couple weeks ago.

The patient's name and age were not released. The hospital plans a news conference Wednesday and would not give details until then.

My question if I get to ask it on Wednesday: Does the recipient look exactly like the donor? If so, isn't that kind of strange for the donor family?

The Discovery Health Web site has a slideshow of some face transplants (partial, I presume). Some may consider these graphic.

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Comments (3)

Ok folks, this is a tretch... a MIND stretch. The face transplant is mainly for healthy face skin and tissue that would match the person receiving it.

Now let's think about all the crime shows, the age advancement programs for lost children.

The face a transplantee gets will not look like the donor. Why? because the donor's skull most likely won't match, I'm no scientist, however, the crime shows, etc use skulls to re-create what a victime may have looked like. That given, I can only believe that the face donated would look much more like the receiver than the donor. Then again I've been wrong once or twice.

Posted by Minn whaler | December 16, 2008 6:25 PM

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I remember some woman in France had the world's first face transplant a couple years ago. I vividly recall the doctor saying her face would be a "hybrid" -- that she wouldn't look like herself or like the donor, that she'd look like a mix of the two.

Posted by Nicole | December 16, 2008 11:24 PM

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"you look like death warmed over?"

...so tasteless

Posted by c | December 17, 2008 3:44 PM

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