Chinese Man Gets New Face, New Life After Transplant

BEIJING, April 14, 2006 — -- Doctors in northwest China have successfully carried out the country's first face transplant.

Chinese surgeons performed a partial transplant on a 30-year-old Chinese man whose face had been badly disfigured after he was attacked by a bear, according to China's state media.

If confirmed by international experts, this would be the world's second face transplant. French surgeons accomplished the world's first operation on a 38-year-old woman whose lips and nose had been damaged by a dog over a year ago.

"The surgery is even more complex than the first face transplant in France in November last year," Dr. Han Yan, a deputy director at the hospital's plastic surgery department, told the official Xinhua news agency. The surgery was conducted at Xijing Hospital in the central city of Xian.

Li Guoxing suffered serious injuries to his face after being assaulted by a bear in 2004. Li was forced to lead a reclusive life because of his terribly disfigured face, according to the Chinese news report.

A team of doctors replaced two-thirds of the patient's face, mostly on the right side. He was given a new cheek, nose, upper lip and an eyebrow from a single donor.

Doctors said the patient was now recovering from the operation, but they estimate it will still take six months for the new face to develop any feeling.

According to news reports, the donor was a man who had been declared brain-dead before the operation. The donor's next of kin requested that his identity and other additional information be withheld from publication.

About 1 million Chinese suffer severe facial damage each year. At least 5 percent of these victims are so badly disfigured their cases cannot be remedied by surgery, according to state media.

The hospital performed the face transplant on Li free of charge after learning of his poverty and miserable life.

Before this transplant, the hospital had only experimented on rabbits. It transplanted the skin tissue from a New Zealand rabbit to a local one.