For the first time in the world, American surgeons performed a successful operation for the simultaneous transplantation of the face and both hands of a patient who suffered from burns after an accident. The Associated Press reports this.
According to the publication, in 2018, a resident of New Jersey, Joe Dimeo, was returning home from a night shift and fell asleep at the wheel. His car crashed into a guardrail, overturned, and caught fire. The man suffered burns to 80 percent of his body.
After the accident, Dimeo spent four months in the hospital and underwent 20 operations. He lost his fingers, eyelids, and scars on his face and neck that made it difficult to move. In 2019, doctors decided to transplant the face and hands of a dead donor. During the operation, which lasted 23 hours, the patient was transplanted all the skin and cartilage from the hairline to the neck, fragments of the zygomatic arches, the bones of the nose and lower jaw.
Six months after the transplant, Dimeo was able to blink, raise his eyebrows, and wince again, as well as dress himself, play with the dog, and even play golf. But to prevent tissue rejection, he will have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of his life.
