‘Man with three faces’ makes medical history
FRANCE: 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 that causes disfiguring tumours.
The initial operation was a success, but complications arose after Hamon 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 year 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 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, who had performed 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,’’ Hamon said.
Finally, late on January 15, a Sunday, the medical team was informed that a face donor had been found, a 22-year-old man who had died hundreds of kilometres 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 Hamon’s new face.
Lantieri said the operation had advanced medical science. ‘‘Can we redo a facial transplant? Yes, we can.’’ However, the team said it required an exceptionally brave and mentally strong patient to pull through such an ordeal.
For now, the new face is smooth and static, with Hamon’s skull, skin and features not yet fully aligned. He speaks with difficulty.
Despite all the angst and physical pain, 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.
‘‘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’.’’