Spain's First Face Transplant Patient in Good Shape

A 43-year-old man who underwent Spain's first facial transplant was making very good progress Friday, the surgeon who conducted the operation said.

"The patient is doing very very well. But we have to be careful," Pedro Cavadas said."

Spain Carries Out First Face Transplant Operation
Doctors in Spain early Wednesday successfully completed the country's first face transplant and only the eighth such operation to have been carried out worldwide, the health ministry said.

The man received a new face from a 35-year-old man who died in a traffic accident in Wednesday's operation at the Hospital La Fe in the eastern city of Valencia which lasted 15 and a half hours.

It was the eighth such operation to have been carried out worldwide, the Spanish health ministry said.

"His ordeal lasted for 11 years. His only hope was a facial transplant... Today he can swallow, speak clearly and recover the sense of taste," he said. "To put it simply, he has regained human dignity."

French Surgeons Perform World's First Hands, Face Transplant
In a world first, French surgeons replaced in a single operation the face and both hands of a man horribly disfigured by an accident, the hospital where the surgery took place announced Monday.

The identity of the recipient was not officially disclosed but local newspaper Levante-EMV said he was from Spain's Canary Islands and had suffered a serious facial injury.

The first successful face transplant was performed in France in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire, a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by her dog.

US Completes First Face Transplant
A team of Ohio doctors have replaced 80 percent of a woman's face in what is considered the world's first nearly complete facial transplant, the Cleveland Clinic announced Tuesday.

Three others have since been carried out in France, two in the United States and one in China. Two of the patients, one in France and the other in China, have died.

Source-AFP
LIN

World's First Face Transplant Patient Feels She is Alive Again
The French woman who received the world's first face transplant 18 months ago said Friday she felt reborn, but admitted she still looks at herself in the mirror with a combination