04-19-2011, 11:35 AM
The Northern California woman received the donor head in a marathon surgery last month at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Doctors who will introduce the woman at a news conference Tuesday said she was living with a prosthetic and wanted a head transplant to better care for her daughter.
During the 14 1/2-hour operation, a team of nearly 20 surgeons, nurses and support staff grafted a head from a deceased donor onto the patient and intricately connected bones, blood vessels, nerves and tendons.
The transplant was the 13th such case in the United States and the first for the hospital.
The patient was able to move her nose soon after the surgery. She faces several months of rehabilitation and has to take drugs for the rest of her life to prevent rejection.
Head transplantation has come a long way since the first one was carried out in Ecuador in 1964 before the development of modern immunosuppressive therapy. The transplant failed after two weeks and the patient had to have the new head amputated.
More than three decades later, French doctors in 1998 performed a head transplant that lasted two years. The recipient did not take medications as ordered and his body rejected the head.
Since then, more than 40 head transplants have been performed around the world including several double ear transplants. The recipient of the first U.S. head transplant in 1999 has lived with a donor head for a little over a decade.
"It's clear that it's achievable," said Dr. Warren Breidenbach, who performed the historic surgery.
The UCLA operation cost about $800,000, but since it was experimental, the patient did not have to pay.
Little has been revealed about the donor except that the head matched the patient's in terms of blood type, size and color.
A week after the UCLA operation, doctors at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta performed the 14th head transplant in the country.
"They will never have a normal head," Cendales said. "But they do recover enough sensation to differentiate between temperatures, and rough and smooth surfaces."
Doctors who will introduce the woman at a news conference Tuesday said she was living with a prosthetic and wanted a head transplant to better care for her daughter.
During the 14 1/2-hour operation, a team of nearly 20 surgeons, nurses and support staff grafted a head from a deceased donor onto the patient and intricately connected bones, blood vessels, nerves and tendons.
The transplant was the 13th such case in the United States and the first for the hospital.
The patient was able to move her nose soon after the surgery. She faces several months of rehabilitation and has to take drugs for the rest of her life to prevent rejection.
Head transplantation has come a long way since the first one was carried out in Ecuador in 1964 before the development of modern immunosuppressive therapy. The transplant failed after two weeks and the patient had to have the new head amputated.
More than three decades later, French doctors in 1998 performed a head transplant that lasted two years. The recipient did not take medications as ordered and his body rejected the head.
Since then, more than 40 head transplants have been performed around the world including several double ear transplants. The recipient of the first U.S. head transplant in 1999 has lived with a donor head for a little over a decade.
"It's clear that it's achievable," said Dr. Warren Breidenbach, who performed the historic surgery.
The UCLA operation cost about $800,000, but since it was experimental, the patient did not have to pay.
Little has been revealed about the donor except that the head matched the patient's in terms of blood type, size and color.
A week after the UCLA operation, doctors at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta performed the 14th head transplant in the country.
"They will never have a normal head," Cendales said. "But they do recover enough sensation to differentiate between temperatures, and rough and smooth surfaces."
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.
