• Question: How do you get a face transplant?

    Asked by anon-193421 to Morwenna, Jamal, iainstaniland, Heidi, Emma, Carl on 10 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Carl Heron

      Carl Heron answered on 10 Nov 2018:

      Face transplants are enormously complex and intricate processes. The first was carried out in 2005. Face transplants, as you can imagine, are for people who have had serious accidents and need reconstructive surgery. A donor (someone who has given permission for doctors to use their body when they die) is needed of course for whole face transplants.

    • Photo: Emma Crawford

      Emma Crawford answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      Face transplants have only recently become a possibility, after discussions and research from various bodies – including the facial transplantation team at Royal Free London. Follow the link for some of the main plastic surgery procedures and techniques used when performing face transplants: https://www.royalfree.nhs.uk/services/services-a-z/plastic-surgery/facial-reconstruction-and-face-transplants/plastic-surgery/

    • Photo: Heidi Gardner

      Heidi Gardner answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      Face transplants are very difficult and risky operations, and only available to people that have had really terrible accidents or infections that have caused their own face to be damaged beyond repair. The first face transplant was completed in 2015 and cost a huge $350,000, but that patient will need to be on medication for the rest of their lives – the ‘anti-rejection’ medication suppresses the immune system so that the body doesn’t attack the foreign tissue (the new face), but this also leaves the patient open to infections.

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