Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Congrats 2009 Gratis! , WHALEYS' ▼ ▼ \ KTM T ^ MrLL wi . «-£»»» Spring au 211 Main St (across from College of Engineering) * 803.254.7801 Est 1895, A Tradition at the University of South Carolina 'ifA > Patrick Gardin / The Associated Press French surgeon Jean-Michel Dubernard is seen during a news conference at the Edouard Herriot hospital in Lyon, southeastern France, in January 2000. French doctors claimed Wednesday a world first partial face transplant, saying a nose, lips and chin were grafted onto a 38-year-old woman disfigured by a dog bite. Dubernard collaborated on the transplant on Sunday. TRRnspuinT • cormnucD f Rom i is not unethical.” And Dr. Jean-Pierre Chavoin, secretary general of the French society of plastic surgery, noted that Lantieri had planned to do a face transplant himself and had been beaten. Carine Camby, director general of the agency under the French Health Ministry that coordinates organ procurement, said normal reconstructive surgery could not have been used in this case. “It is precisely because there was no way to restore the functions of this patient by normal plastic surgery that we attempted this transplant,” Camby said. “She could no longer eat normally, she had great difficulty speaking and there is no possibility with plastic surgery today to repair the muscles around the mouth which allow people to articulate when they speak and not spit out food when they eat.” Camby also said the patient “received many psychiatric examinations. The psychiatrists decided that she understood the surgery and that she accepted all of the consequences, including the risk of rejection and of failure, the risk of immune suppression treatments and the need to take them for life.” But Chavoin, who took part in preparatory meetings about the patient’s case over the last several months, questioned her psychological health. The patient “seems to have quite a depressive profile,” he said. The operation was done at a hospital in Amiens, in northern France, by ground-breaking transplant surgeon Dr. Jean Michel Dubernard and Dr. Bernard Devauchelle. Dubernard led teams that performed a hand transplant in 1998 and the world’s first double forearm transplant in January 2000. The hand transplant recipient later had it amputated. Doctors said the man failed to take the required drugs and his body rejected the limb. Lantieri said he was fearful that this operation could turn out like that first hand transplant if the patient is psychologically unstable. Dubernard did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday. A news conference is set for Friday. The face transplant patient, now in Dubernard’s ward in a Lyon hospital in southern France, was also to have a second experimental treatment — an infusion of the donors bone marrow — to try to prevent rejection of the new tissue. “Maybe Jean-Michel Dubernard is revolutionizing the concept of transplantation,” Lantieri said, but added that the patient now was being subjected to two untested treatments. Lantieri, who developed his own plans to attempt a partial face transplant, said members of Dubernards team contacted him last spring, seeking details of his protocol.