Surgeons in France have for the first time performed a partial face transplant, a surgeon who led one of the two teams that performed the operation said Wednesday.
The recipient of the transplant was a 38-year-old woman who was severely disfigured after being attacked by a dog, said the surgeon, Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard of Lyons. The operation was carried out in Amiens on Sunday.
In a brief telephone interview, Dubernard said the two surgical teams grafted a nose, lips and chin from a donor who had been declared brain dead onto the woman's face.
Hospital officials said the woman who received the transplant did not wish to be identified. They gave no details about what measures — if any — had been taken to reconstruct her face short of a transplant.
"The patient is well and fine and the graft is OK," Dubernard said. He added that a news conference would be held Friday in Lyon to discuss the case.
The surgery represents the first foray into a much-debated realm of medicine. A number of other surgical teams in the United States, France and the Netherlands have announced plans to perform face transplants when there is an appropriate match between a donor and a patient. But none is known to have performed the procedure.
Full face transplants and partial ones involve the transfer of attached muscles, blood vessels, nerves and other tissues. The tissues are needed to help restore an acceptable appearance for the recipient.
Among the risks of either type are the chance that the graft will be rejected, leaving a patient in a worse condition than before the operation, the development of cancer from the immunity suppressing drugs given to prevent organ rejection, and the chance that a patient will suffer major psychological problems in adjusting to a new identity and appearance.