Turkey’s 6th transplant performed in Antalya

ANTALYA – Anadolu Agency

DHA Photo

Turkish doctors at Akdeniz University performed the country’s sixth face transplant surgery on Aug. 23.
Dr. Ömer Özkan of Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey’s southern province of Antalya and his team have started to transplant the face of braindead Muhittin Turan onto a 54-year-old Turkish patient, Salih Üstün. Turan, aged 31, had a motorbike accident on Aug. 21, and suffered brain death at the hospital. The family of Turan decided to donate his organs.

Prof. Dr. Ömer Özkan, surgeon at the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Department at the Akdeniz University Hospital in Antalya, who also performed the first and fourth face transplantation surgeries in Turkey, came to the hospital on Aug. 22 at 11 p.m. to harvest the face of Turan.

 Turan’s scalp, eyelids, jaw and maxilla, nose and half his tongue were harvested by Dr. Özkan during a successful operation which lasted about 8 hours.

Arriving at the hospital at 7:15 a.m. on Aug. 23, Dr. Ozkan said to a journalist that, “everything is OK.” The operation of the face transplantation started at 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 23 and was expected to be completed later that night.

Turkey’s Face Transplant History

Turkey’s face transplantation adventure began when the family of Ahmet Kaya, who committed suicide on Jan. 21, 2012, donated his face. The face removed from Kaya was transplanted to 19-year-old Ugur Acar, whose face was almost completely seared by a burning blanket when he was only 40 days old.
The successful operation, a first in Turkish plastic surgery history, put Prof. Dr. Ömer Özkan and his team in the spotlight of the international and Turkish media.

The second face transplantation surgery in Turkey was performed at Ankara’s Hacettepe University on Cengiz Gul while the third one occurred on March 17, 2012 at Ankara’s Gazi University.