Doctors in France performed the first simultaneous face and hand transplant in the world over the weekend.
Wired PR News – The first simultaneous face and hand transplant in the world was performed over the weekend. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), a team of doctors at a hospital in France completed the milestone surgery on a 30 year-old burn victim, attaching a new partial face and set of hands.
As noted by the AP, the surgery makes the sixth partial face transplant to be performed; however it was the first that involved hand transplants as well. The organs were taken from a donor who had become brain dead. The recipient, who was injured in 2004 and left with extensive burn scarring remained on the waiting list for the transplanted organs for one year.
The operation was performed at the Henri Mondor hospital in Creteil, France, a suburb of Paris.
