US scientists are preparing to perform the world's first full-face transplant.
The 24-hour operation involves lifting an entire face from a dead donor -- including nose cartilage, nerves and muscles -- and transferring them to someone disfigured by burns or other injuries.
A team at the University of Louisville in Kentucky has submitted a 30-page request to the university's ethics committee, New Scientist magazine reports yesterday.
Peter Butler, a surgeon at London's Royal Free Hospital, called for a debate on the procedure in 2002.
The Royal College of Surgeons for England and Wales urged caution and decided last year that, for the time being, the risks of such an operation outweighed the possible benefits.
But John Barker, leader of the Louisville team, told New Scientist: "Caution by itself will not get us any closer."
Faces have been replaced before. In 1994, a nine-year-old child in northern India lost her face and scalp in a threshing machine accident.
Her parents raced to hospital with her face in a plastic bag and a surgeon managed to reconnect the arteries and replant the skin.
There have been similar successes in the US and Australia
Hands have been transplanted, as well as thighs and knee bones, and a one-month-old baby girl survived a hand and arm transplant. Transplants of kidneys, lungs, hearts and other tissue are now routine: the only constraint is a shortage of donors.
But a full-face transplant -- of the kind used on Nicolas Cage and John Travolta in the science-fiction thriller Face/Off -- is a bigger challenge.
More than 30 muscles are involved in facial movements: for example, it takes 17 muscles simply to smile.
Surgeons would need to save not just the donor's skin -- from hairline to jawline and from ear to ear -- but also the nose, mouth and lips, eyebrows and eyelids, subcutaneous fat, some of the muscles, the nasal substructure and the nerves.
Then they would have to painstakingly reconnect all of this to someone rendered almost unrecognizable by burns or scarring.
The recipient would then require a lifetime's supply of immunosuppressive drugs to maintain the new face.
Some burns victims have had more than 50 skin-graft operations to rebuild faces that they believe to be still hopelessly disfigured.
Surgeons argue that whole-face transplants would produce better results.
New Scientist worked with a television company, Mentorn, and an animation firm to conduct a "virtual transplant," stretching the facial skin of a virtual donor over the bone structure of a virtual patient.
Appearance is dictated not just by skin, but by bone structure, and surgeons are not sure how closely a reconstructed face would resemble a donor's at the end of the operation.
The technical challenges are huge.
So are the ethical dilemmas.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
RSS