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Face Plant
A team of doctors in France have performed the first human face transplant. Skin covering the nose, lips and chin of a 38-year-old woman disfigured by a dog bite was grafted on from a brain dead donor whose family consented.
This issue is wrought with ethical concerns, however. The donated skin would ‘have to come from a beating heart donor. So, say your sister was in intensive care, you would have to agree to allow their face to be removed before the ventilator was switched off… [and then] there is the possibility that the donor [would] carry on breathing.’
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What's wrong with that? by Valerie
The donated skin would ‘have to come from a beating heart donor. So, say your sister was in intensive care, you would have to agree to allow their face to be removed before the ventilator was switched off… [and then] there is the possibility that the donor [would] carry on breathing.’"
I’m really curious why Mr. Hutchison, who is chief executive of Saving Faces (the Facial Surgery Research Foundation), listed this fact as an ethical concern. Most tissue transplants come from breathing, heart-beating donors, all of whom are brain dead. Donors in this condition are actually preferred, as the tissue transplanted is more likely to survive and be successful. Transplanting facial tissue would be no exception.
I’m not saying that ethical issues don’t exist. Onerds have discussed this before in the Face On newspost. However, I don’t believe the fact that the donor may continue to breathe (respirator assisted, no doubt) is really that concerning.
Patient Smoking by Valerie
After a rather successful transplant of the lower face, this patient has taken up smoking again. Smoking after surgery slows the healing and could threaten the viability of her graft.
Nicotine causes vasoconstriction, thereby decreasing blood flow to all tissues, including transplanted ones. By decreasing bloodflow, oxygen delivery is also decreased. Healing tissues use a disproportionate amount of oxygen as compared with healthy tissues.
I was really surprised to read of her smoking. You would think that a patient who was disfigured, but given a second chance with the first surgery of this kind, would leave the cigarettes behind.
Transplantee meets the press by Brandon
For the first time, the receiver of the first human face transplant appeared before the press today, in France. Although Isabelle Dinoire, 38, smiled and laughed awkwardly and and spoke in slurred and labored tones, she said she could now open her mouth and eat, and recently started to be able to feel her lips and nose. She said she was looking forward to resuming a normal life.