Face/Off

Can you remember John Trovolta's and Nicholas Cage's movie Face/Off(1997)? It was a movie back then but now it is a reality.

MADRID – A team of surgeons has carried out the world's first full-face transplant on a young Spanish farmer unable to breathe or eat on his own since accidentally shooting himself in the face five years ago

The Spanish patient, who was not identified, now has a completely new face from his hairline down and only one visible scar, which looks like a wrinkle running across his neck, said Barret, who headed the 30-member surgical team.

Face transplants in the real world have gained acceptance since the first partial transplant almost five years ago in France. Patients don't look like the dead people whose skin and facial features they now live with. And skeptical bioethicists and doctors groups have warmed to the idea for patients who have tried reconstructive surgery with little success.

There have been 10 partial transplants worldwide, including in the United States, China and elsewhere in Spain, but this is the first full face transplant, Barret said.

The Spanish operation is similar to a near-total face transplant carried out by a team led by Dr. Maria Siemionow in 2008 in Cleveland, on a woman who was also shot in the face.

But the Spanish case "seems to us to be more complex," said Neil Huband, a spokesman for the UK Facial Transplantation Research Team, based at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Barret would give no details about the donor except to say that doctors try to choose donors of similar weight, height, facial measurements and skin tone as the recipient.

Recipients run the risk of deadly complications and must take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent organ rejection, raising their odds of cancer and many other problems.

Photos not released-mamalado