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Nation's First Face Transplant Done in Cleveland

Dr. Maria Siemionow replaced 80 percent of a woman's face with that of a dead female donor. The hospital spokeswoman said that the operation was done a couple weeks ago. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)

Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow adjusts her sterile bonnet …

A woman so horribly disfigured she was willing to risk her life to do something about it has undergone the nation’s first near-total face transplant, the Cleveland Clinic announced Tuesday.

Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow and a team of other specialists replaced 80 percent of the woman’s face with that of a female cadaver a couple of weeks ago in a bold and controversial operation certain to stoke the debate over the ethics of such surgery.

The patient’s name and age were not released, and the hospital said her family wanted the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The hospital plans a news conference Wednesday and would not give details until then.

The transplant was the fourth worldwide; two have been done in France, and one was performed in China.

Details of the Cleveland surgery were not disclosed, but surgeons generally transplant skin, facial nerves and muscle, and often other deep tissue. That is done so that the new face will actually function and not just be a mask.

Surgeons not connected to the case reacted cautiously since little was known about the circumstances, but they generally praised the operation.

“There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a surgeon at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who plans to offer face transplants, too.

Dr. Laurent Lantieri, a plastic surgeon at Henri Mondor-Albert Chenevier Hospital, near Paris, who did a face transplant on a man disfigured by a rare genetic disease, said: “This is very good news for all of us that doctors in the U.S. have done this.”

Unlike operations involving vital organs like hearts and livers, transplants of faces or hands are done to improve quality of life — not extend it. Recipients run the risk of deadly complications and must take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent organ rejection, raising their odds of cancer and many other problems.