Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic are now screening patients for the first face transplant. They plan to install a face from a dead donor onto an individual who is seriously disfigured. The Clinic just received the bioethics board approval to conduct the surgery last year. (Other previous BB posts about face transplants here, here, and here.) From USA Today:
The "consent form" says that this surgery is so novel and its risks so unknown that doctors don't think informed consent is even possible.
Here is what it tells potential patients:
Your face will be removed and replaced with one donated from a cadaver, matched for tissue type, age, sex and skin color. Surgery should last 8 to 10 hours; the hospital stay, 10 to 14 days.
Complications could include infections that turn your new face black and require a second transplant or reconstruction with skin grafts. Drugs to prevent rejection will be needed lifelong, and they raise the risk of kidney damage and cancer.
After the transplant you might feel remorse, disappointment, or grief or guilt toward the donor. The clinic will try to shield your identity, but the press likely will discover it.
The clinic will cover costs for the first patient; nothing about others has been decided.
Another form tells donor families that the person receiving the face will not resemble their dead loved one. The recipient should look similar to how he or she did before the injury because the new skin goes on existing bone and muscle, which give a face its shape.
Link to USA Today article, Link to BBC News article about the controversy, Link to Time article about why the actual transplant may be delayed
