A year-old Polish man received a face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest time frame to date for such an operation. It was Poland's first face transplant. Face transplants are extraordinarily complicated and relatively rare procedures that usually require extensive preparation, typically months or years.
But medical officials said the Polish patient's condition was deteriorating so rapidly that a transplant was seen as the only option. The patient is now being watched for any potential infections. The patient worked at stonemason's workshop near the southwestern city of Wroclaw where on April 23 a machine used to cut stone tore off most of his face and crushed his upper jaw.
The man, identified only as Grzegorz, received intensive treatment at a hospital in Wroclaw, but an attempt to reattach his own face failed, leaving an area close to the brain exposed to infections, doctors said.
The damage was too extensive for doctors to temporarily seal the exposed areas. So he was taken to the Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology in Gliwice, which is the only place in Poland licensed to perform face transplants. The center has experience in facial reconstruction for patients disfigured by cancer and its experts have practiced face transplants on cadavers.
Doctors at the center said the hour face and bone transplant was performed May 15 soon after a matching donor was found. The surgery reconstructed the area around the eyes, the nose, jaws and palate and other parts of the man's face. Pictures show surgery stitches running from above the patient's right eye, under the left eye and around the face to the neck.
