There have been 50 face transplants performed in 11 countries since the surgery was pioneered back in 2005, and long-term outcomes have been favorable, a new review finds. In total, 85% of people receiving these complex surgeries survived five years, and 74% were still alive a decade after transplant completion, researchers report. When the numbers focused on deaths linked to transplants per se, five- and ten-year survival rose to 96% and 83%, respectively.
That's significantly better than survival for other types of transplant, said the team of Finnish researchers. For example, at 10 years post-surgery, survival for liver transplants reaches 61% and for heart transplants the number is 65%, they noted. "The first 50 face transplants in the world during a period of 18 years demonstrate a promising survival rate of the grafts, exceeding several solid organ transplants," concluded a team led by Dr.
Pauliina Homsy, from the department of plastic surgery at the University of Helsinki. Her team published their report Sept. 18 in the journal JAMA Surgery .
Homsy's team collected data on all 50 face transplants conducted in 48 patients, carried out at 18 centers in 11 countries. Two of the patients required a second transplant, which in each case proved successful, the researchers noted. Nineteen patients were operated on in North America (18 in the United States), 29 in Europe, 1 in China and 1 in Russia, the review found.
Most (81%) of patients were male. In 58% of cases, some kind.