World's First Face Transplant

[Xenos 2Fan]

What will they think of next?


http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=29647

[Bullika]

jesus, a dog ripped her face off!!

[Xenos 2Fan]

[Bullika]

theres nothing worse than having a snotty rockweiler with a saliva problem chase you down the street trying to make love to your left leg or trying to open a vein in your leg. If I had a cent for every time a dog in Cyprus tried to get to the marrow of your bones, i d be a rich man.

[brother]

I watched an in depth program on BBC news about this and even though she is doing well they cannot guarrantee that her body will not reject the transplant either now or at a later date and could leave her worst off but otherwise man knid has yet again achieved another magnificent fete.

[cannedmoose]

[Xenos 2Fan]

[cannedmoose]

Just to correct myself, I've just been reading about this specific case. It appears that it wasn't the kind of attack that we're talking about, rather the dog was confused because the woman in question had taken a drugs overdose and the dog was simply trying desperately to wake her up. When she didn't wake up, it tried harder and caused the damage to her face. So not a case of aggression or lack of control, but a poor distressed animal worried about its owner. Unfortunately, the dog was later put down, against its owners wishes (it really annoys me when they euthanise an animal for doing nothing wrong, in 99% of cases, it's the owner's fault, not the dog).

[cannedmoose]

[Xenos 2Fan]

[Xenos 2Fan]

Here are more details.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4491310.stm

[magikthrill]

wow. they actually had an episode about this on a series here in the US called Nip/Tuck. Only in the show the transplant failed.

[turkkan]

It is more than that probably, over 50%, actually that this transplant will fail for the simple reason that it comes from a complete foreigner. Most kidney transplants are taken from near relatives that share common genes, or even better from a sibling,with which you share half youre genes with, that means the tissue from the two members is very similiar, and this has a large affect on the outcome of a transplant operation. Its the same with a liver, as you can simply cut a piece of liver from a donor, like youre mother or sibling perhaps, and it will grow back in the donor within a month. It is due to this that these particular transplant operations are so succesful. IN her case, and that of lung and heart transplants this is not the case, (well unless you have a family member brain dead), and this person is usually someone unknown (although they do go testing for tissue types and to see whether certain classes of molecules are similiar), and thus the chances of tissue rejection is quite great. The 5 year life expectancy for a heart and lung transplant, is somewhere around 30% i beleive, which is quite low. Furthermore, this face will probably be infected with viruses , such as the herpes one that most of have or EP, most of the population has it and is dormant in most. THe moment this woman is loaded with immunosuppresive drugs those viruses will start showing themselves and the term 'cold sore' will get a completely new meaning. This is seen often in HIV patients, their faces blackens partially sometimes due to the simple herpes viruss that usually only gives the average patient small sores. Her chances of getting cancer also sky rocket. In general, a lot of health professionals beleive, since this was not a life or death situation, this procedure was unwarranted, and for a cosmetic procedure the risk was of the charts for her life. SHe understandably choose otherwise though, but this does open a pandoras box in ethics, with how far a patient is allowed to go in cosmetic surgery before he starts threatening his life, and whether a doctor should legal carry out such operations.