Scots surgeons plan UK’s first face transplant unit
MEDICAL experts in Scotland are hoping to become the first in the UK to offer pioneering face transplant treatment, it has been revealed.
NHS professionals in Glasgow – with the backing of Holyrood ministers – have launched a bid to open a specialist facility north of the border to tackle the complex surgery.
The innovative operations, using the faces of dead donors, are still in the experimental phase with just 30 carried out since the first took place in France in 2005.
But a team from the maxillofacial services department at Glasgow’s Southern General is now looking to offer the complex procedure to patients from across the UK.
The NHS National Services Division, which oversees treatments for rare health conditions, has been asked to investigate if other health boards would pay for such operations.
A report stated: “The service provided by maxillofacial services will provide facial transplants for individuals within Scotland and potentially, the UK, who have experienced significant disfiguring injuries as a result of traumatic events or congenital conditions.
“Examples of such events are facial burns, animal attacks, industrial injuries, vascular lesions and type-1 neurofibromatosis, which causes tumours to grow.”
We remain cautious about psychological issues.
It continued: “A transplant will help to restore functions such as swallowing, breathing without a tube, talking and communicating as well as improving appearance.
Scottish Government Ministers have asked for further work to be done by the Scottish Health Technologies Group to explore the evidence base for face transplant being established in Scotland.”
Due to the rarity of face transplants, it is understood health officials are looking at introducing just one or two specialist centres for the UK.
Last night, the revelation was welcomed by facial disfigurement charity Changing Faces.
A spokesman said: “We will support unconditionally any patient, and family, who chooses to undergo a face transplant.
“We remain cautious about psychological issues. We consider that face transplantation research is still in its relatively early stages and think there is a continuing need to assess the learning internationally and evolve best practice.”
In March 2012, Richard Norris, from Hillsville in Virginia, was given what is still the fullest face transplant carried out anywhere in the world.
He had accidentally shot himself 15 years earlier at the age of 22 and consequently turned into a virtual recluse.
Speaking to the American version of GQ magazine in September, he said: “It’s hard to know how much I’ve changed because I see myself every day but I notice little things, like the way I pronounce words.
“I am not obsessed with my face and I don’t spend hours looking in the mirror. I’m just a regular person.”
