Current News #6

"Surgery transplanted most of patient's face"
by Madison Park, CNN.com

The first face transplant surgery in the United States was performed recently at the Cleveland Clinic on a woman who had a severely deformed face. To begin with, she had no nose or jaw really and was missing an eye, so her transplant included covering everything on her face but her forhead and chin. This kind of opperation is very new and has only been performed in France and China so far. Doctors say that this type of opperation is strictly for those who have extreme deformations, like the woman in france who had been mauled by her dog, and is not considered "a cosmetic surgery in any sense." The photo of the donar from the face transplant was never shown to the patient or any of the doctors - but this new face will give the patient feeling in her face now and a new nose as well as a jaw. Risks of this surgery include the persons body rejecting the skin grafts, which would be worse case scenario, and the patient must take a pill everyday to make sure the body can handle the new skin. Hopefully this woman will be able to make a full recovery and eventually lead a normal life, unlike the tragic one she had before.