U.S. Face Transplant Patient Is Reportedly Doing Fine
July 16 -- TUESDAY, July 14 (HealthDay News) -- Seven months after receiving a near-total face transplant, Connie Culp is doing well, according to one of her surgeons, Dr. Maria Siemionow, from the Cleveland Clinic.
Culp had been shot in the face with a shotgun by her husband in 2004. The shooting left her with most of the middle part of her face missing, including her nose. In addition, there was mouth, nerve, skin and other structural damage. She could not drink from a cup, her speech was slurred and she lost her sense of smell.
"We are now seven months post-transplant, and the patient is doing very well," Siemionow said. "She is back in her community. She is walking a dog. She is happy to be home and is going back to her life. She really adjusted very well, and is really a positive and happy patient."
The doctor said the transplant changed her life. "Before, when she was walking her dog, people were calling her names," Siemionow said. "People were calling her a monster when she was in a shopping mall or grocery."
Culp, the mother two, had had 23 operations since the shooting, but she remained disfigured and had said she felt humiliated in public. That fueled the decision that a face transplant was the only way to restore her facial function, as well as her appearance.
Culp's case is reviewed in an article in the July 15 online edition of The Lancet.
Her new face came from a woman who had been declared brain dead and who was a match for Culp's age, race and skin complexion. In a 22-hour operation in December, Siemionow's team used the donated face to cover 80 percent of Culp's face.
The new face included the nose, upper lip, lower eyelids, upper jaw, incisor teeth, palate and various glands. After bone portions of the transplant were secure, surgeons connected the arteries and veins. About an hour and a half later, the donor tissue began to "pink up," confirming that the graft was viable, they reported. Finally, surgeons connected the facial nerves.
