DOCTORS PERFORM FACE TRANSPLANT WITH EYELIDS
Baku, July 9 (AZERTAC). A French surgeon said Thursday he has conducted a full-face transplant including eyelids and tear ducts, in a rare operation on a 35-year-old man with a genetic disorder. Rivals called the French operation, similar to one carried out in Barcelona in April, a new achievement that further advances efforts to provide faces — and new lives — for the disfigured.
The latest French patient has new "eyelids, tear ducts, full face," surgeon Laurent Lantieri told The Associated Press by telephone. "He`s doing well." Lantieri said the procedure was carried out June 27 at the Henri Mondor hospital in the Paris suburb of Creteil. Neither Lantieri nor the hospital would give further details about the operation, the patient or the donor.
Lantieri claimed it was the first of its kind involving so many different parts of the face. The hospital said the operation was the 12th face transplant worldwide since the first conducted in France in 2005, on the nose, mouth and chin of a woman disfigured by a dog attack. Such operations remain quite rare and complex, though they have gained acceptance in recent years.
