Kalhoun
September 23, 2005, 2:31pm
21
There’s a special about this that they’ve shown on Discovery Health in the past. I bet they will rerun it again soon.
The doctors on that program, who were trying to pioneer the procedure, stated that the only reason a face transplant hasn’t yet been done is political. People are afraid that if they donate their loved one’s face, that the recipient will look exactly like the donor, and that it would be too traumatic to contemplate. However, they did simulations and asked people to match up the donor face with the post-surgery recipient face, and people couldn’t do it. The underlying bone structure was the primary influence on the actual appearance of the face.
The real medical concern is that the recipient would have to take anti-rejection medication for the rest of their life. Also, in order to do the transplant, the scar tissue that makes up the current face would have to be removed. If the transplant failed, which they sometimes do, the patient would literally have no skin covering the face, and the likelihood of death would be quite high.
The risk of rejection would be similar to that of a hand transplant, though, and the doctors on the program state that there are at least 40 people out there who have had successful hand transplants. The difference is that if a hand is rejected, it can be lopped off relatively easily.
On the program, a woman who was severely burned in a fire was interviewed. Her entire face was made up of scar tissue. She couldn’t even close her eyes. She’d been housebound for something like 8 years. IIRC, she feels that the improvement to her quality of life is worth the risk.
Fascinating documentary–I highly recommend it.
I saw this program, and it was indeed fascinating. I think they should definitely try it. The difference this could make in a person’s life is staggering. I believe it was a segment of this show that detailed an Indian woman whose scalp and face was completely ripped off in an industrial accident. They were able to reattach hers (my scalped friend was not so lucky). The prospect of having no face would be more than I could bear.
Kalhoun
September 23, 2005, 2:36pm
22
Belowjob2.0:
I don’t have any ethical objections to facial transplants. If it works, fine. I am curious, though, as to the benefits of facial transplants versus reconstruction with cloned skin. Recosntruction with cloned skin is standard procedure if there isn’t enough skin for grafts, and it avoids the immune rejection issues inherent in facial transplants.
I was burned on half my body, most of the front, and around to the back, about eight years ago. I have extensive skin grafts, though the second degree burns covering my face and head healed well enough not to require any grafts. I looked scary for the first six months or so, and then noticeabley burned but not particularly scary in the first couple of years after that. Now, you can’t tell that I was burned unless you look closely. My face is still significantly stiffer than a normal person’s face, and I do facial exercises several times daily to maintain at least a basic level of facial expression.
If facial transplants give a burn victim the full range of facial expression, and connections in terms of nerves and blood vessels well above those available to graft recipients, then it should be the preferred method of treatment. But it may become an obsolete approach as cloning technology improves.
Labs have been able to clone skin from burn victims for a decade or so now, but cloning the nerve cells, muscle tissue, and circulatory tissue is, I believe, a different story. Doing a complete facial reconstruction with the burn victim’s own cloned tissue would be the ideal, using alginate molds to shape the victims face, and borrowed fat and collagen to fill out facial structure. I’m guessing that this would be impossibly expensive and time consuming in comparison to facial transplantation. I do question the quality of life available to someone who has to take anti rejection drugs for the rest of his life.
I’m sorry about your accident. I’m glad to hear your recovery has gone well.
The anti-rejection drugs are no more an issue to a face transplant patient than to a kidney or heart transplant person. A friend of mine had a triple transplant and she just took her pills every day, like so many people do for different ailments. The main problem with that is the cost of the drugs. She had a fabulous life. She died about eight years after the surgery because her heart gave out. But they were great years.
If this is successful, then they might put Nicholas Cage’s face on JohnTravolta’s head, and vice versa.nobody wants that.
Kalhoun:
I saw this program, and it was indeed fascinating. I think they should definitely try it. The difference this could make in a person’s life is staggering. I believe it was a segment of this show that detailed an Indian woman whose scalp and face was completely ripped off in an industrial accident. They were able to reattach hers (my scalped friend was not so lucky). The prospect of having no face would be more than I could bear.
Replantations are a wonderful thing indeed. What they were able to do with that Indian girl (I think she was only about 11) was truly amazing.
Of course, I am now very, very careful not to dangle my long hair near any machinery. Even the automatic pencil sharpener.