Press release – 30th Nov 2005
As news of the world’s first face transplant is announced, Consultant Facial Surgeon Iain Hutchison at Barts, chief executive of Saving Faces – The Facial Surgery Research Foundation, comments:
This is the first facial transplant of the modern era. All medical advances are to be celebrated, but this operation throws up many moral and ethical issues. This was a ‘quality of life’ operation rather than a life-saving operation and has many implications for the recipient and donor’s families.
The recipient chose to take the risk of the operation failing if the blood vessels become blocked, there’s a medium-term risk of the immuno-suppressant drugs failing to control rejection of the donor tissue, and a long-term risk of the drugs causing cancers. She could be back to square one without a face, needing further reconstruction operations.
For the donor’s family there are other issues – the facial skin and fat will have been removed while the donor’s body was kept alive. And grieving becomes a very difficult issue.
It’s a huge dilemma to choose who should receive a face transplant.
For media enquires, please contact the Saving Faces office.
A Woodford Green resident, Lalinder Bansal, and her family raised more than £11,000 for Saving Faces. Mrs Bansal underwent complicated reconstructive surgery at the end of last year as a result of being diagnosed with tongue cancer. The two surgeons who operated on Mrs Bansal accepted the donation on behalf of Saving Faces. Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon, Leo Cheng, commented that “the support of their families is one of the most important things for people diagnosed with this kind of cancer; it helps them to stay positive and speeds their recovery”. Iain Hutchison, the founder of Saving Faces and the other Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon, said that “the research now being conducted by Saving Faces will in future direct the way surgeons perform surgery on patients”. He added that “the funds raised by the Bansal family will enable our researchers to recruit more patients to our clinical trials and will enable us to go to more schools to tell teenagers what binge drinking and smoking will do to them”. Mrs. Bansal’s husband, Nasib, thanked the surgeons and indicated that they planned more fundraising activities in aid of Saving Faces. 
