‘Man with three faces’ tells of his joy as he makes medical history
A FRENCH patient nicknamed “the man with three faces” says he has come to accept his new identity three months after becoming the recipient of the world’s first double face transplant.
Jerome Hamon, 43, received the world’s first full face transplant, including tear ducts and eyelids, at a hospital outside Paris in July 2010.
He suffers from neurofibromatosis type 1, a genetic mutation causing deeply disfiguring tumours.
The initial operation was a success, but complications arose after he was wrongly treated for a common cold with an antibiotic incompatible with his immunosuppressive treatment in 2015.
The following year, he began to show signs of transplant rejection, and his second face deteriorated.
Last summer, Mr Hamon was admitted to hospital and in November doctors had to remove his face due to irreparable necrosis. There were no immediate donors, forcing doctors to keep him alive in hospital without a face for two months.
“We couldn’t leave him without a face,” said Laurent Lantieri, a renowned plastic surgeon from the Georges-pompidou European Hospital in Paris, and who had performed Mr Hamon’s first face transplant.
But they needed the patient’s approval to attempt an unprecedented second transplant.
“I made up my mind very quickly. I understood I didn’t have any choice otherwise it would have ended in tragedy,” Mr Hamon told Le Parisien.
Finally, late on Jan 15, a Sunday, the medical team were informed that a face donor had been found, a 22-year-old man who had died hundreds of miles from Paris.
A huge logistical and medical operation was swiftly launched requiring the surgeon to cross France to remove the face from the deceased donor and rush back to Paris at dawn. By late morning the following day, the groundbreaking surgery was over and the medical team were heartened to observe good colour in Mr Hamon’s new face.
Dr Lantieri said that the operation has also advanced medical science. “Can we redo a facial transplant? Yes, we can re-transplant and this is what you get,” he told the AFP news agency.
However, the team said it required an exceptionally brave and mentally strong patient to pull through such an ordeal.
“(Everyone) was blown away by Jerome’s courage, his will, his strength of character in a tragic situation. While he was waiting he never complained, he was even in a good mood,” recalled Bernard Cholley, an anaesthetist. For now, the new face is smooth and static, with Mr Hamon’s skull, skin and features not yet fully aligned. He speaks with difficulty. The medics said regaining more control would be a gradual process reliant on immunosuppressant drugs to prevent his body rejecting the transplanted tissue.
“I feel very well in myself,” the 43-year-old transplant recipient told reporters. “I can’t wait to get rid of all this,” he added.
To avoid any rejection, the patient underwent three months of special blood treatment to knock out antibodies prior to the transplant, and received chemotherapy to neutralise his immune system. Despite all the angst and physical pain, Mr Hamon said he was delighted with the operation and his new facial identity.
“The first transplant I accepted immediately. I thought, ‘This is my new face’ and this time, it’s the same,” he said.
“If I hadn’t accepted this new face it would have been terrible. It’s a question of identity... But here we are, it’s good, it’s me. When I look in the mirror, I say, ‘That’s Jerome’.”
‘It’s a question of identity. It’s good, it’s me. When I look in the mirror, I say, “That’s Jerome”’