Patient's body rejects leg as face transplant a success
ANKARA/ANTALYA
Hürriyet photo
A patient’s body rejected a pioneering leg transplant in the southern province of Antalya yesterday, one day after doctors performed the world’s first apparent triple limb transplant in parallel with Turkey’s first face transplant surgery.Doctors were transplanted limbs to a man who lost both arms and one leg when he was electrocuted at the age of 11, in what was reported as the world's first double arm and single leg transplant.
Meanwhile, surgeons successfully performed the country's first-ever face transplant, the Anatolia news agency reported Saturday.
A team of doctors at Akdeniz University in the southern city of Antalya performed the operation on a 19-year-old boy whose face was burned when he was a 40-day-old baby, said Anatolia.
Tissue from the face of a 45-year-old donor was successfully transplanted, it said.
The operation brings to 20 the number of face transplants carried out worldwide, the report said. The first was a partial face transplant on Frenchwoman Isabelle Dinoire in 2005.
Reports from AFP were incorporated into this story.
