Face Transplant Said Medically Possible Within a Year

A new type of transplant which would see a donor's face grafted on to a recipient could be medically possible within six to nine months, according to a leading British plastic surgeon.

Dr. Peter Butler of the Royal Free Hospital in London told the British Association of Plastic Surgeons that it was essential that an ethical debate take place before anyone undergoes the surgery.

"It's not, 'Can we do it?', but 'Should we do it?'" said Butler. "The technical part is complex but I don't think that's the thing that's going to be the very great difficulty. It's the ethical and moral debate that's going to have to take place before the transplant takes place."

Butler said patients who have suffered severe facial burns, cancer patients who've had facial surgery or people disfigured in accidents could benefit from the surgery, and the first candidates might be young children.

"I am told that the age at which children first recognize themselves is between five and six," Butler said. Doctors said an adult acquiring a new face would have to cope with a major psychological and emotional challenge.

The microsurgical procedure would involve removal of the the patient's face, facial muscles, skin and subcutaneous fat, which would be replaced with that of a cadaver donor. Blood vessels, arteries and veins from the donor would then be connected to the patient's vessels with microscopic stitches, along with the nerves.

While the patient would acquire the skin tone and texture, eye brow color and eyelids of their donor, the recipient would retain his or her own bone structure.

"It is like any other organ transplant because you can actually do it and achieve it with modern immunosuppression," Butler told the BBC. "But it is different because it is visible and it is part of our expression."

A British Department of Health spokesperson said that before the transplant could occur, the procedure would have to be examined by an advisory committee of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

Face transplants until now have occurred only in science fiction, forming the basis of the 1997 film "Face Off," starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, in which a criminal and detective swapped faces.

Other sources: BBC