Cyndalie
12-17-2008, 09:58 AM
Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic replace about 80% of her face with skin and muscles harvested from a cadaver. It's the most extensive such operation ever performed and the first in the U.S.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-sci-facetransplant17-2008dec17,0,1710951.story
Could you imagine going through something like that? Waking up with a dead persons face?
All transplant patients commit themselves to a lifetime of drugs that suppress their immune systems so their bodies won't reject the donor tissue. Compared with internal organs such as a kidney or liver, the risk of rejection with a transplant involving skin is especially high, Bradley said.
The immunosuppressant drugs have severe side effects and could shorten a patient's life by as much as 10 years, doctors said
That's really incredible.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-sci-facetransplant17-2008dec17,0,1710951.story
Could you imagine going through something like that? Waking up with a dead persons face?
All transplant patients commit themselves to a lifetime of drugs that suppress their immune systems so their bodies won't reject the donor tissue. Compared with internal organs such as a kidney or liver, the risk of rejection with a transplant involving skin is especially high, Bradley said.
The immunosuppressant drugs have severe side effects and could shorten a patient's life by as much as 10 years, doctors said
That's really incredible.