XI'AN: Although he has survived the critical post-surgery period, China's
first face transplant patient Li Guoxing has to wait another two months to know
if the operation has been a success.
Li, a 30-year old whose face was disfigured by an attack by a bear, received
a partial face transplant operation in a northwestern Chinese hospital on April
14, the second of its kind following a French patient last year.
A man who receives a
face transplant operation is shown in this photo taken on April 14, 2006.
The man, surnamed Li, had suffered severe bear attack in 2004 and he
at last undergoes a face transplant operation at a Xi'an
hospital with the help of a voluntary organization. The
operation starts on April 13 and lasts 13 hours. According to the
hospital, the operation is
successful.[Xinhua] |
Li, from Lisu ethnic group, lives in a mountainous village in China's
southwestern province of Yunnan. In 1997, the local government of Lanping
County, Li's hometown, began to promote the protection of wild animals, which
included the black bear.
One and a half years ago, Li was looking for his lost sheep on a mountain
near his village when he saw a black bear eating it. Without thinking, Li picked
up a wooden stick to try to drive the bear away, but enraged the animal. It
pounced on him and mauled his face.
The attack ended when Li's fellow villagers arrived on the scene, but the
right side of his face and nose were almost lost. Li was immediately sent to a
local hospital for treatment. His life was saved but he remained disfigured as
he could not afford plastic surgery.
After the attack, Li's life changed. He was afraid of being seen by people
outside of his family and he could not continue his part-time jobs.
The Natural Conservancy (TNC), a leading US-based non-profit organization
dedicated to preserving the diversity of life on earth, learnt of Li's case.
"At first, we really were not sure whether we could help him," said Zhou
Dequn, who works on the TNC project in Lijiang in Yunnan. The project aims to
study the living conditions of black bears in Asia and also tries to offer help
to those who are injured by wild animals.
"At the end of 2005, after learning that Xijing Hospital in Xi'an, capital of
Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, had successfully performed a facial skin
transplant operation on a rabbit, we contacted the hospital with the help of a
local medical college in Yunnan and asked if it could perform an operation on
Li," Zhou said.
Dream comes true
On March 9, Li left for Xi'an, together with an interpreter as he cannot
speak standard Chinese.
Li waited nearly a month in Xi'an before the hospital found a male donor for
him. The donor had been declared brain-dead by the hospital.
During the 14-hour procedure Li Guoxing was given a new cheek, upper lip,
nose and an eyebrow. Doctors at the hospital claim that the operation was even
more complex than the world's first such operation on 38-year-old Isabelle
Dinoire, whose lips and nose were ripped off by a dog last November.
The first thing that Li did after regaining consciousness was to ask for a
mirror, but doctors refused his request initially as they worried that he might
be too emotional when seeing his new face.
But doctors later said Li had seen his new face in the mirror and was
satisfied with the operation.
As the donor was much more pale-skinned than Li, Li's new face will resemble
neither that of the donor nor his original one, though doctors may make further
surgical modifications to make the face more natural, said Guo Shuzhong,
director of the hospital's plastic surgery department.
The final success of the transplant will depend on whether Li can get through
an acute rejection period of one or two months, but judging by Li's recovery so
far, there should be few problems.
(China Daily 04/24/2006 page2)