MADRID, (Reuters) – Spanish doctors completed the first ever tongue and jaw transplant on Tuesday in an operation on a 43-year-old man, surgeon Pedro Cavadas said yesterday.
The patient, who lost the lower half of his face during treatment for a malignant tumour 11 years ago, is recovering well after the 15-1/2-hour operation and may be released in 10 days, Cavadas told a news conference at La Fe University Hospital in Valencia.
The unidentified patient was given a tongue and jaw as part of the first face transplant operation carried out in Spain. The hospital did not identify the single donor.
“The patient should recover the capacity to speak intelligibly, to swallow …. recover sensitivity in his tongue and his face,” Cavadas said.
Tuesday’s transplant, the eighth involving a face since the surgery was pioneered in 2005, was particularly difficult because previous surgery had rendered the veins, arteries and nerves normally connected in these operations useless, Cavadas said
