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French team continue transplant success
Written by Sandra Ryan Tuesday, 07 April 2009 14:40
French physicians, in a 30-hour operation, have performed the world's first simultaneous partial-face and double-hand transplant.
Paris' Public Hospital authority described the recipient as a 30-year-old burn victim who was injured in a 2004 accident.
Forty doctors, working in two teams, took 30 hours to complete the simultaneous grafts at Henri Mondor Hospital in Créteil, Paris, at the weekend.
French surgeons also performed the world’s first hand transplant, in 1998, and first face transplant in 2005, on Ms Isabelle Dinoire, 38, who received the graft after being mauled by her dogs in northern France.
Health officials in France said that Prof Laurent Lantiéri led the team that carried out the face transplant, while Prof Christian Dumontier oversaw the double hand transplant.
A spokesman for the Paris Hospital Authority said that the hands had been grafted on to the patient above his wrists while the entire upper part of the man’s face — including his nose, eyelids, forehead, scalp and ears — was also replaced. The spokesman also said that the man had been burnt in an accident in 2004, which had "prevented him from having any sort of social life".
Prof Lantiéri described the operation as a success and said that the patient’s general condition was good.