First Face Transplant

mriya3 writes to tell us the BBC is reporting that surgeons in France have performed the first ever face transplant. The medical team, led by Jean-Michel Dubernard, transplanted live tissue to a 36-year old woman whose face had been destroyed by a dog. From the article: "It has been technically possible to carry out such a transplant for some years, with teams in the US, the UK and France researching the procedure. [...] But the ethical concerns of a face transplant, and the psychological impact to the patient of looking different has held teams back."

Comments

Re:Ethical concerns?

[Darkon]

A live person is missing a face. A dead person doesn't need theirs any more. Where's the problem?

From the article:

"Where donors would come from is one issue that would have to be considered. "The transplant 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 there is the possibility that the donor would then carry on breathing."

Re:Ethical concerns?

[Pudusplat]

You obviously did not RTFA. The donor cannot be dead for this transplant to be successful. The donor would supposedly be someone close to death on life support. The surviving relatives of the "near deceased" would have to give the go-ahead to rip off the face of their beloved, assuming they will no longer need it. This could presumably lead to problems if a miraculous recovery of the donor happened or could adversly affect the donor's family if they see the face of their relative on someoene else's head. Those are the ethical concerns.

Re:Ethical concerns?

[darkmeridian]

Technically, face transplants are not medically necessary. The surgery would definitely make the person feel better, but it is not life-saving such as heart, liver, lung, or kidney transplants. The side effects of immunosuppresants are still quite severe and perhaps life-threatening, since the immune system is getting shut down for the life of the patient. The question is whether a doctor can allow someone to take these risks for a non-life-saving procedure.

Living donors are not a problem because they're brain dead. So cutting off someone's face is scary; do so while they're still breathing (via ventilator) is really creepy. Yet, we pull hearts out of living people already so what's the face?