French doctors carry out world's first full-face transplant
French doctors are claiming to have successfully carried out the world’s first face transplant, according to the Le Parisien newspaper. The patient, who had been deformed by a genetic disorder, was reportedly doing well.
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“He is walking, he is eating, he is talking,” Laurent Lantieri, head of reconstructive surgery at the Creteil Henri-Mondor hospital near Paris, told the newspaper. Although his “beard has already rejected its new face”.
The operation, which involves the removal of the entire face from a corpse, was carried out at the end of June on a 35-year-old man known as Jérôme.
“We are the first to have done a full-face transplant including eyelids and tear ducts. I am proud because this has been done in France,” Lantieri was quoted as saying.
He added that he had already received authorisation for five other transplants.
Earlier this year a Spanish medical team said it had conducted a full-face transplant in a Barcelona on a young man whose face was severely injured in an accident.
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