Face transplant woman happy with new looks (China Daily/Agencies) Updated: 2005-12-06 05:49
PARIS: The French woman who received the world's first partial face
transplant is in excellent health and delighted with the result of the
groundbreaking operation, her surgeon said on Sunday.
 New face: The first picture of the woman
published by UK's Daily Telegraph. | Professor
Jean-Michel Dubernard repeated a denial that the woman was injured after
attempting to commit suicide, following a report in a British newspaper which
said it had interviewed the 38-year-old.
"I have just left her room, she is doing impeccably well. She is very happy,"
he said by telephone from the central-eastern city of Lyon, where the patient is
being kept under medical observation.
"The appearance of the graft is normal," said the professor, a transplant
pioneer who carried out the world's first double hand graft five years ago.
"She even prefers her face now than before now that should put to rest all
the ethical controversy," he said, in reference to concerns that the patient
would be unable to adapt to her changed face.
"She said she was quite satisfied with the result from an aesthetic point of
view, and was very happy with her new face."
The mother of two from the town of Valenciennes in northern France lost both
lips, her nose and chin after she was mauled by her dog in May, and was unable
to speak or eat properly.
Doctors transplanted a nose, chin and mouth taken from a brain-dead donor on
to her lower face in the northern French town of Amiens last weekend, a world
first for an operation that carries high medical risks.
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