Is a Full Face Transplant a Risk Worth Facing?

Facial transplants aren’t just for the movies. Last week Dallas Wiens, 25, who had lost his face in an electrocution incident, received a new one, thanks to an anonymous donor and a team of 30 doctors at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

UPDATE: a photo:

The procedure – the first full face transplant in the US – involved a series of operations that removed the patient’s face and installed the donor’s face — chosen according to its tissue type, age, sex, and skin color – including nose, mouth, lips, eye sockets and eyebrows. The underlying fat, nerves, blood vessels and even muscles were attached in a surgery that lasted 15 hours, followed by a 10–14 day hospital stay.

Since doctors can’t yet implant new eyes, the operation hasn’t restored Dallas’s ability to see, and it won’t leave him with a typical face (or even with a new face: because the underlying musculature and bones are different, the face’s personality will correspond more to his previous face), And yet it has already reportedly helped him to feel his daughter’s kisses again.

There are side effects however. Dallas will spend the rest of his life taking a regimen of medication meant to suppress his own immune systems and prevent rejection; long-term immunosuppression can increase the risk of developing dangerous infections, kidney damage, and cancer. In 2005, Peter Butler, the surgeon who first suggested the procedure, wrote, “The key area of debate is whether the benefit of this procedure to someone with severe facial deformity—in terms of improvement of function, aesthetics, and psychology—outweighs the risk of long term immunosuppression.”

Dallas’ s grandfather explained : “He could choose to get bitter or he could choose to get better. His choice was to get better. Thank God today he’s better.”