A man has received the first full face transplant in the U.S. from a team of more than 30 doctors and other providers led by plastic surgeon Dr. Bohdan Pomahac at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The recipient was a 25-year-old construction worker from Texas who was disfigured in a power line accident.
The man received a new nose, lips, skin, muscle and nerves from an unidentified donor. The operation was paid for by the U.S. military, which wants to use knowledge gained from the procedure to help soldiers with severe facial wounds.
According to Dr. Pomahac, the man will not resemble “either what he used to be or the donor,” but something in between. “The tissues are really molded on a new person.”
The operation, which took 15 hours, was not able to restore the man’s sight, and some nerves were so badly damaged from his injury that he will probably have only partial sensation on his left cheek and left forehead, the surgeon said.
About a dozen face transplants have been done worldwide, in the U.S., France, Spain and China. This was the third in the U.S.; the first two performed in this country were partial transplants.
While face transplants are rare, there are several common facial reconstructive surgery procedures, including eyelid ptosis repair, ectropion repair, entropion repair, tear duct surgery, thyroid disease and facial paralysis (Bell’s Palsy).
