A middle-aged man who suffered serious facial injuries in a car crash receives a near-total face transplant at the Cleveland Clinic.
The surgery took place in September this year and lasted for 24.5 hours. The surgery involved 9 surgeons, a number of medical experts and nurses.
According to a Cleveland Clinic press release, about 90 percent of the man's face was damaged in a car accident. The face transplant involved the forehead, majority of the scalp, lower and upper eyelids, nose, eye sockets, upper cheeks, upper teeth, upper jaw, facial nerves, facial muscles, skin and salivary glands.
The patient, who wants to remain anonymous, was chosen for a face transplant after many reconstruction attempts failed that could improve the quality of his life. The patient had lost vision in one of the eyes and experienced difficulty in speaking and breathing. The face transplant has given him some hope for an improved quality of life. The patient also expressed his gratitude to the Cleveland Clinic for performing the sensitive operation and also to all the donors and their families without whom the transplant would have failed.
"I learned through this process that it's so important that we raise awareness about organ and tissue donation. Your driver's license donor card is not enough; please talk to your loved ones about your further donation wishes. God bless us all," says the patient.
The latest surgery is just the second face transplant surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. Surgeons at the clinic performed the first face transplant in December 2008. It was not only the first face transplant at the clinic but also the first in the U.S. The surgery received a lot of attention globally and was considered the most complex face transplant at that time.
Just like the latest transplant, the first surgery also involved integration of different functional parts of the face like lower eyelids and nose. The surgery also involved transplant of several tissue types, skin, nerves, veins, arteries, bone structure and muscles.
The surgery was co-directed by Dr. Frank Papay, Chairman of the Dermatology and Plastic Surgery Institute, who revealed that the patient is responding and recovering well after the surgery. Dr. Papay said that the patient is also breathing without a tracheostomy and will start eating from his new mouth soon. Dr. Papay suggests that this is the first face transplant where doctors have been successful in retaining limited vision in the patient's eye.
