Date:23/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/23/stories/2008082357222000.htm

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Doctors see face transplants eventually becoming routine procedures

LONDON: Transplanting faces may seem like a chapter from science fiction, but doctors say the experimental surgical procedures could one day become routine. In papers from two of the world’s three teams that have performed partial face transplants, experts said their techniques were surprisingly effective, though complications exist and more work is still needed.

The research was published on Friday in The Lancet.

“There is no reason to think these face transplants would not be as common as kidney or liver transplants one day,” said Laurent Lantieri, a plastic surgeon at the Henri Mondor-Albert Chenevier Hospital in France and one of the doctors who operated on a man severely disfigured by a genetic disease.

In The Lancet, Dr. Lantieri and colleagues reported on their patient’s status one year after the transplant. — AP