Face transplants are enormously complex and intricate processes. The first was carried out in 2005. Face transplants, as you can imagine, are for people who have had serious accidents and need reconstructive surgery. A donor (someone who has given permission for doctors to use their body when they die) is needed of course for whole face transplants.
Face transplants are very difficult and risky operations, and only available to people that have had really terrible accidents or infections that have caused their own face to be damaged beyond repair. The first face transplant was completed in 2015 and cost a huge $350,000, but that patient will need to be on medication for the rest of their lives – the ‘anti-rejection’ medication suppresses the immune system so that the body doesn’t attack the foreign tissue (the new face), but this also leaves the patient open to infections.
Comments