How does the “man with three faces” feel and why he is “22 years old again”.
Jerome Amon is the first person in the world to have had a new face transplant twice.
43-year-old Frenchman Jérôme Amon is the first person in the world to have a new face transplant twice. Three months after the last transplant, journalists asked the man and the surgeons about the details of the operation, and also learned about the patient's well-being.
Amon underwent his first face transplant in 2010 to treat neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder characterized by the growth of tumors along the nerves of the skin, brain and other parts of the body. But in 2015, the man caught a cold and doctors prescribed him antibiotics to treat the disease. They were found to be incompatible with the immunosuppressive therapy the patient was taking to prevent rejection of the transplanted face.
As a result, in November 2017, the tissue on his transplanted face began to die off. The surgeons had to remove it. This state essentially left Amun without a face: he did not have eyelids, ears, nose, he could not speak freely or eat food.
Jerome's history of operations.
In January, a team of surgeons and paramedics at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital led by surgeon Laurent Lantieri performed Amon's second face transplant. Before the procedure, doctors replaced all the blood in his body over a month in order to eliminate some of the potentially troubling antibodies from previous treatments.
“If you don't have skin, you have infections. We were very worried about the possibility of another refusal,”said Lantieri before the operation.
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Graft failure occurs when the recipient's immune system attacks the implanted organ or tissue. It is important for doctors to prevent any infection from entering the patient's body and to observe special conditions of sterility. Therefore, for three months, in the period after the removal of his first transplant and before the second, Amon lived “without a face” in his hospital ward in almost complete darkness. During this time, Lantieri said that he was most inspired by the “great strength” of the patient and the fact that he never complained.
The operation for the second face transplant lasted about 15 hours. She was successful, and Amon is currently continuing his rehabilitation procedure.
“This shows that the face is an organ like any other that can be transplanted and relayed,” Lantieri said.
If the first face of Amun was “presented” to him by 60-year-olds, then after the second transplant, the man said that he had managed to lose several decades.
I am 43 years old. The donor was 22. So I became 20 years younger. If I did not recognize this face as mine, it would be terrible. This is a question of self-identification. But it's okay, it's me,”Amon said.
Other doctors applauded the efforts of the French surgeons and said the technique could be used to help patients with rare diseases.
Lantieri stressed that he and his team plan to publish their data in one of the medical journals, but admitted that for now, patients like Amon will remain an exception.
“There are several other patients I follow. Some have had transplant changes over time, but they are fine. For now, I hope not to do any transplants like this one,”Lantieri summed up.
GRIGORY PUSHKAREV