Barcelona: Worlds First Full Face Transplantee Goes Public

A thirty-one year old Spanish man has undergone the world’s first full-face transplant.

The man, known only as Oscar, publicly thanked his doctors during a press conference in Barcelona.

[Oscar, Face Transplant Patient]:              
„I would like to thank all the medical team, the donor’s family and my relatives for supporting me until the end.“

The victim of a shooting accident, Oscar had been unable to breathe, swallow or talk properly.

His sister says she hopes the operation will give her brother a new lease on life.

[Oscar’s sister]:         
„Now my brother will have a new life and we the family are very grateful for their great work.“

Doctors say Oscar’s operation took two years to plan.

The procedure took 24 hours, and used the face of a brain-dead donor.

[Joan Pere Barrett, Plastic Surgeon and Medical Team Leader]:          
„He will need physiotherapy, logopaedics, severe facial rehabilitation for months. As the patient already knows he will need to wait 18 months starting from the time he was transplanted to see the final and stable result and we hope he will have 80 or 90 per cent of all the function he had before.“

Although facial transplants have been carried out in the past, this is believed to be the first full-face transplant.

Foto: NTDTV