Sunday, 25 April 2010

How do you know about face transplants?

I´ve heard about heart or liver transplants but I´ve never heard about this kind of operation on a living person.
The point is that a team of surgeons have already performed the first face transplant (to get a new tongue and jaw) on a man who lost part of his face 10 years ago due to radiotherapy to treat an aggressive tumor. They transferred facial parts from a donor who had died in a traffic accident and now, the patient will be able to eat and speak normally.
Who would you look like after a face transplant?
Unlike in the film Face/Off, in which Nicolas Cage and John Travolta have their face switched, the recipient doesn´t end up looking exactly like the donor. When a donor´s face is spread over a recipient´s skull and facial muscles, the effect is a new face that doesn´t look like either person.
Anyway, I think that anyone who has a face transplant in the future will need to have psychological treatment beforehand to prepare themselves for the changes.

Butterfly

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