Almost six months after a rare face and double hand transplant, Joe DiMeo is relearning how to smile, blink, pinch and squeeze.
The 22-year-old New Jersey resident had the operation in August last year, two years after being badly burned in a vehicle crash.
“I knew it would be baby steps all the way,” DiMeo said. “You’ve got to have a lot of motivation, a lot of patience — and you’ve got to stay strong through everything.”
Photo: AP
Experts said that it appears the surgery at NYU Langone Health was a success, but added that it would take some time to say for certain.
Worldwide, surgeons have completed at least 18 face transplants and 35 hand transplants, said the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which oversees the US transplant system.
However, simultaneous face and double hand transplants are have only been tried twice before.
The first attempt was in 2009 on a patient in Paris who died about a month later from complications.
Two years later, Boston doctors tried it again on a woman who was mauled by a chimpanzee, but ultimately had to remove the transplanted hands days later.
“The fact they could pull it off is phenomenal,” said Bohdan Pomahac, a surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital who led the second attempt. “I know firsthand it’s incredibly complicated. It’s a tremendous success.”
DiMeo is to be on lifelong medications to avoid rejecting the transplants, as well as continued rehabilitation to gain sensation and function in his new face and hands.
In 2018, DiMeo fell asleep at the wheel, he said, after working a night shift as a product tester for a drug company.
The vehicle hit a curb and utility pole, flipped over and burst into flames. Another driver who saw the accident pulled over to rescue DiMeo.
Afterward, he spent months in a medically induced coma, and underwent 20 reconstructive surgeries and multiple skin grafts to treat his extensive third-degree burns.
Once it became clear that conventional surgeries could not help him regain full vision or use of his hands, DiMeo’s medical team began preparing for the risky transplant in early 2019.
“Within the world of transplantation, they’re probably the most unusual,” UNOS chief medical officer David Klassen said.
Almost immediately, the NYU team encountered challenges, including finding a donor.
Doctors estimated that he only had a 6 percent chance of finding a match compatible with his immune system. They also wanted to find someone with the same gender, skin tone and hand dominance.
Then during the search for a donor, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and organ donations plummeted.
During New York City’s surge of COVID-19, members of the transplant unit were reassigned to work in wards with COVID-19 patients.
In early August last year, the team finally identified a donor in Delaware and completed the 23-hour procedure a few days later.
They amputated DiMeo’s hands, replacing them mid-forearm and connecting nerves, blood vessels and 21 tendons with hair-thin sutures.
They also transplanted a full face, including the forehead, eyebrows, nose, eyelids, lips, ears and underlying facial bones.
“The possibility of us being successful based on the track record looked slim,” said Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the medical team of more than 140 people. “It’s not that someone has done this many times before and we have a kind of a schedule, a recipe to follow.”
So far, DiMeo has not shown any signs of rejecting his new face or hands, Rodriguez said.
Since leaving the hospital in November last year, DiMeo has been in intensive rehabilitation, devoting hours daily to physical, occupational and speech therapy.
“Rehab was pretty intense,” DiMeo said, and involves a lot of “retraining yourself to do stuff on your own again.”
DiMeo, who lives with his parents, can dress and feed himself. He shoots pool and plays with his dog Buster.
Once an avid gym-goer, DiMeo is also working out again — benching and practicing his golf swing.
“You got a new chance at life. You really can’t give up,” he said.
Rodriguez said that he is amazed to see that DiMeo has been able to master skills like zipping up his jacket and putting on his shoes.
“It’s very gratifying to all of us,” Rodriguez said. “There’s a tremendous sense of pride.”
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