Human head transplantation at the present stage of the development of medicine is technically possible, but this raises a number of ethical and methodological questions, Sergei Gauthier, director of the Federal Research Center for Transplantology and Artificial Organs, told RIA Novosti.
Earlier in the media it was reported that the Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero said that he would be able to carry out the first human head transplant in 2017.
In his opinion, “head change” operations will be carried out to save the lives of people diagnosed with muscle and nerve degeneration or cancer.
Canavero will present a detailed project that could be a breakthrough in modern medicine at the American Academy of Orthopedic and Neurological Surgeons (AANOS) conference in Maryland (USA).
“Of course, all this sounds fantastic, but, on the other hand, at the present stage of development of medical technologies, it is probably purely technically possible … although a number of ethical issues arise about this,” Gauthier said.
In his opinion, there will be very limited indications for such a procedure, "because if we are talking about a seriously ill person, it is not known how healthy his head will be in order to attach a new body to this head." The transplantologist also added that a big problem is the restoration of the spinal cord, which is planned to be removed during the operation.
“This surgeon proposes to fasten it with some kind of synthetic material and, apparently, counts on restoring the patency of nerve fibers. Probably, thinking this, he calculated these moments, suggested Gaultier.
The expert emphasized that since transplantation is now widely used, it is possible that such an operation will be in demand. “Now the woman's uterus is being transplanted, and she is able to bear the fetus. It would seem, why do this if you can apply surrogacy without any risk, but they are doing the same, and more than one such operation has already been done, he cited an example.
Promotional video: