Face Transplant Gives Burn Survivors Hope

In some circles, the partial face transplant performed on a woman in France is more than a medical oddity. It is an exciting new source of hope to burn victims like Bernhard Heitz.

Burn survivors "go crazy about it, they love the idea," said Heitz, who suffered extensive disfiguring burns to his nose, lips, ears and body in a 1997 plane crash and is now president the World Burn Foundation, a support group. "Now that they know they can do it, I'm sure people are going to start asking their doctors."

During the Nov. 27 operation, a 38-year-old Frenchwoman mauled by her dog received a new nose, lips and chin from a brain-dead donor. It was the world's first face transplant and an operation many medical experts consider experimental, but Heitz said many burn victims are undaunted.

"They're very happy to take the risk if they would be given the chance because anything is better than what they have," he said.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051213/ap_on_he_me/face_transplant_survivors

so the face transplant will probably be used only in the most extreme cases, where the underlying muscles as well as the skin have been destroyed and the patient is on tube feedings, unable to eat, talk, or sometimes breathe properly. A rejected transplant would leave a functional patient in much worse shape than s/he started out with, and shouldn't be used for simple disfigurement.

The transplant patient in France had been mauled by dogs and was in just such dreadful condition. There was no question of vanity in her case, since the transplanted structures will never appear normal. They will give her much more normal function, though, and that is the reason it was done.

People disfigured by burns are going to need to come down to earth on this one. Finding a crooked doctor who will do this procedure for appearance will likely be fairly easy. However, the risk they run is trading a disfigured but functional face for no face or function at all if they reject the transplant.

They were the first people I thought of when I heard about the face transplant.

If patients are given true and honest disclosure, and know the risks going in...why not let them decide if it is worth the possibility of death to get a new face.

As for the ethics...give me a break. What makes a face distinctive is the bone structure underlying the tissues. The tissues are pliable and of themselves have no distinct features (unless there are freckles or moles). I'd bet that the relatives of the donor would not even recognize the face as that of their loved one.