Last year convey a significant milepost in cutting - edge medicine when former firefighter Patrick Hardison received the most extensive face transplant surgery ever performed . Hardison ’s procedure attack out near a X since the first nerve transplant was done in 2005 , a catamenia during which a scientific feat that once seemed to belong to to the kingdom of science fiction became possible and be active closer to the mainstream . Not only were technical limitations transcended , but initial moral objection were also overcome . Here is a smell at the evolution of this groundbreaking procedure — and the people whose lives were changed by it .
1. THE GIRL WHO GOT HER OWN FACE BACK // 1994
In 1994 , 9 - year - old Sandeep Kaur was working in a playing field in India when one of her pigtails was caught in a threshing machine . The auto ’s appurtenance pull in the female child ’s hair and peeled her face off in two piece of music . Her household brought her to the near infirmary , which was three hours away . specify that pelt grafts would not work , the doctors made chronicle by performing what was basically the first side transplantation surgery . Technically , though , since it was the victim ’s own brass that was being supercede , this former cognitive operation count as a fount " re - plant " rather than a transplant .
2. THE WOMAN WHO GOT HER MOUTH AND NOSE REPLACED // 2005
Isabelle Dinoire ’s partial face transplant made headlines not only for the pioneering scientific discipline it involved , but for the circumstances surround it : Dinoire , obviously in the midst of some emotional hurt , had train some quiescency tablet and awoke to happen upon that her wiener had chew off her sassing and olfactory organ while she was unconscious .
In November 2005 , doctorsBernard Devauchelle and Jean - Michel Dubernard — who led the French team that had done the first - ever mod handwriting transplant in 1998 — execute the populace ’s first partial face transplantation , grafting a triangle of tissue paper from a brain - deadened fair sex ’s oral cavity and nose onto Dinoire . Dinoire was capable to eat and speak within a sidereal day and reported satisfaction with the results 18 months later . However , she suffered a serial publication of tissue rejection episodes during that clip , pointing to the need for organ transplant recipient to take immunosuppressant drugs for their entire lives .
3. THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIM WHO HAD 80 PERCENT OF HER FACE RECONSTRUCTED // 2008
In 2008 , Connie Culp became the first person to incur a fond face transplant in the United States . Culp ’s husband had charge her in the face during a domestic conflict , destroying her mouth , nose , nerve , an middle , and a section of osseous tissue and tooth in the eye of her face . Her procedure was performed at the Cleveland Clinic , the first American clinic to approve the procedure . The panoptic , 22 - hour functioning , need 80 percent of Culp ’s face , required removal of former makeshift construction of her jaw anatomical structure and transplanting of off-white , muscle , nerves , blood vessels , and pelt to reconstruct the midsection of her face .
4. THE FARMER WHO UNDERWENT 10 ATTEMPTS TO REBUILD HIS FACE // 2010
In 2010 , a Spanish farmer who had been horribly blemish in a gun accident , identified only as Oscar , became the recipient of the world ’s first full - nerve transplant at a Barcelona hospital . Nine early attempts to reconstruct Oscar ’s face had failed , making him a candidate for the data-based procedure . The 24 - time of day operation expect a team of 30 surgeon , anaesthetist , and nursemaid to put back Oscar ’s facial muscles , nose , lips , upper jaw , tooth , cheekbones , roof of the mouth , tear ducts , and palpebra . Oscar ’s surgery was followed just a few calendar month later by the world ’s second full human face transplantation in France .
5. THE BURN VICTIM WHO WAS ABLE TO SPEAK AND SMELL AGAIN // 2011
Dallas Wiens says he remembers nothing of the November 2008 accident when , while on a cherry picker , his drumhead hit a in high spirits - voltage conducting wire , sending electricity coursing through his body and severely burning him from head to toe . The incident blind him and obliterate his facial feature . Improbably , Wiens survived the chance event and began to make a recovery , but it was a 2011 full face transplant operation that would retort him to biography . The operation , extend out at Brigham and Women ’s Hospital in Boston , replaced the entirety of his fount with that of a bestower and return his ability to utter and sense ( though surgeons were not able to convey back his eyesight ) .
Wiens ’s surgery was followed by full face transplants in the United States on Mitch Hunter later in 2011 and a very encompassing cognitive process on Richard Lee Norris in 2012 .
6. THE CHIMP ATTACK SURVIVOR WHO RECEIVED A NEW FACE—AND HANDS // 2011
While not as much of a milestone in terms of face transplant scientific discipline , Charla Nash ’s narrative is famed for the extremely bizarre fortune surrounding it . In 2009 , Nash force to the Connecticut family of her friend and employer Sandra Herold to aid her cow pen her pet chimpanzee Travis , who had gotten out of ascendance that day . Upon her arrival , Travis , a full - full-grown , 200 - dog pound male , brutally lash out Nash , ripping off her aspect and hands .
After several early surgeries , Nash eventually received look and hand transplants in May 2011 at Brigham and Women ’s Hospital . Both graft were ab initio successful , but the handwriting transplanting eventually had to be bump off after Nash uprise an contagion . Nash continues to recover and it is hoped that her onward motion will inform future operations on veterans returning from war .
7. THE MAN WHO GOT A NEW FACE IN JUST THREE WEEKS // 2013
The first of two side transplants performed in Poland is singular in the main because of the extremely short prison term period within which it was channel out . A manlike patient , identified only as Grzegorz , have a full face transplant just three calendar week after he was injured in a motorcar accident at work in 2013 , losing his nose , upper jaw , and cheeks . The finespun nature of face transplant surgeries usually necessitate months or even years of training , make this finical performance the fastest ever perform . doctor deemed the stop number necessary because the accident had left an expanse of the Einstein exposed to contagion .
8. THE FIREFIGHTER WHO RECEIVED THE BIKE MESSENGER’S FACE // 2015
In 2001 , volunteer firefighter Patrick Hardison rush into a burning home in Senatobia , Mississippi , to rescue a womanhe cerebration was inside . The roof collapsed , knocking his helmet from his nous , fade his mask , and searing his pelt . The chance event leave alone Hardison without ears , olfactory organ , lips , or eyelid tissue paper and with virtually no normal skin left on his full cheek and cervix . Over 70 surgeries and transplant had left him a patchwork of scars and in constant pain in the neck , with limited vision due to lack of function eyelids .
In August 2015 , operating surgeon Eduardo Rodriguez performed the most extensive ever confront transplant on Hardison at NYU Langone Medical Center , using donated tissue paper from David Rodebaugh , a Brooklyn bicycle enthusiast who died follow a bike accident . The transplant prolong from the back of Hardison ’s skull , over the top of his head , and down to his collarbones , and include lid and both ear .
CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR THE PROCEDURE
The relativesuccess of these operationshas dispelled many , but not all , of critics ’ fears . When fount transplants were first project , some doubted the transplant would have feeling and functionality , but patients have regained their senses of smell , mouthful , and hint . Nonetheless , the frail process , need eld of training , microsurgery proficiency , and expectant teams of specializer , is still in its early stages , and there is much room for betterment . Each face transplant surgical procedure execute so far has conform to a slimly different protocol , and the technology is in motivation of standardization . surgeon are explore novel style to match donor and recipient figure and improve alignment using CT CAT scan and3 - five hundred printed replicasof the human body involve in social club to improve provision and speed up the cognitive operation . The surgeries , too , carry a steep price tag — about $ 300,000 on average — and American wellness policy plan do not cover it , a post many Bob Hope will change .
Then there is the on-going moral disputation over the unconscious process . Initial objection revolved around transparent repulsion at the conception and personal identity - free-base misgivings . But while some recipients have express feelings of province toward the presenter ’s legacy , few have account identity crisesabout wearing a donate face . The current moral disputation largely concerns the immunosuppressant drugs that patients must take for avoid rejection of the foreign tissue paper . Such drugs can negatively impact health , increasing risk of cancer , diabetes , and other ailments . Critics indicate that the procedure , while life changing , is not life saving , and that it is essentially putting otherwise level-headed masses at risk of death .
Finally , while the world may be warming up to confront transplants , scientific advances will undoubtedly open unexampled lav of morally questionable worms . Italian operating surgeon Sergio Canavero has declared that he will do the first full headway transplant in 2017 . Most neuroscientists arehighly skepticalthat ’s possible , but the future doubtlessly hold strange thing yet .
