Britain's first full face transplant is given go-ahead

A team of surgeons at a London hospital has been given the go-ahead to carry out the first face transplant in Britain.

Peter Butler, consultant plastic surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, and colleagues, will begin the search for a suitable patient prepared to undergo the experimental procedure, after being granted initial approval by the hospital's ethics committee.

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The decision, disclosed yesterday, comes two weeks after a team of French surgeons carried out the world's first partial face transplant on a woman who had been savaged by a dog. The woman, Isabelle Dinoire, is reported to be recovering well after the operation in which her nose, lips and chin were replaced with a transplant from a donor.

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"The success of the French team probably made people feel less nervous. The results are looking good and they know will now not be the first," Mr Butler said.

Twenty severely damaged patients had approached him over the past couple of years asking to be considered for a transplant, he said. Doctors also had patients they wanted to refer. "We have to be extremely careful about whom we select. We are trying to raise funds for the first five operations, so bad patient selection would not only damage the patient but the process," Mr Butler added.



http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article333477.ece

He'll have to do something pretty radical.

(that's the new Conservative leader on the right, who immediately took a lead in the opinion polls after the party elected him to do for them with Blair did for Labour in the 90s)

To stand up to the chimp.

nt