Britains First Face Transplant Given The OK

by Edgar Allan McAbe

British surgeons will perform their first full face transplant later this year, the People reports.

The Royal Free ethics committee have given a team of specialists from London’s Royal Free Hospital the go ahead to perform the ground breaking surgery for the first time in the UK. This week Spain carried out their first full face transplant, which also included the transplantation of a tongue and jaw. Other cases around the world have been surrounded by publicity, French surgeons have carried out full and partial face transplants on so called Elephant Man Pascal Coler and also on Isabelle Dinoire (pictured) who was badly injured by her dog.

In December last year the United States performed their first face transplant surgery on Connie Culp, who’s husband blasted her face off with a shotgun.

Top UK plastic surgeon Peter Butler has told the press that his team of doctors are not considering cases of modern day elephant men, or anyone suffering from any injuries other than burns. His team specialises in burns treatment and they believe a burns victim is their best chance of success. The procedure involves completely removing the face from a donor and surgically reattaching it to the burns victim. The recipient will literally be wearing the face of a dead person, which is a fairly macabre concept not entirely unlike the character Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw horror movies.

On top of the restrictions on the lucky patient only being selected from applications by burns victims, the selected patient must also be a British citizen. Peter Butler has said his team will only accept applications from people in the UK, and they have already turned down many applications from disfigured foreigners.

Butler and his team have been given to go ahead to perform four face transplant operations, each one costs £25,000 to perform and is being funded by the charity organisation The Face Trust. The Face Trust are a charity specifically created to help fund research and surgical treatment for people with severe facial injuries.

You can help support The Face Trust by visiting their website and making a donation: The Face Trust: Support

If you yourself are a disfigured, British burns victim you can apply for the procedure online too: The Face Trust: Contact

Comment

Read All Comments

Leave a comment:

FEATURES AND ARTICLES

Celebrity Dead or Alive Game
Try this quiz to see if you can identify which of these famous celebrities are still alive and which are entertaining the underworld.

Speak Your Brains
Have your say in our superb forum.

Competition
This month we’re giving one lucky reader a bottle of absinthe!

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR LATEST NEWS HEADLINES VIA EMAIL

SIGNUP FOR EMAIL DELIVERY HERE:

POP CULTURE NEWS

‘The Sandman’ television show going into development
Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman comic books are set to become a television show, planning and development have begun the early stages.

Amy Pond to die
Unconfirmed reports are flying around the interwebs saying that Doctor Who actress Karen Gillan will be leaving the show part way through the next series.

Sylvester McCoy ‘Hobbit’ update
Sylvester McCoy has broken his silence on the Hobbit casting rumours surrounding him.

Britains First Face Transplant Given The OK

THE MORNINGSTARR* © 2006-2010