Two Times a Charm for Jerome Hamon- a Man With a Second Face Transplant

After facing complications with anti-rejection medications, Jerome Hamon’s previously transplanted face tissue began to die, and so another transplant had to be done as the tissue death had left him with no skin at all.

Jerome Hamon received his second facial transplant after the facial tissue from the first transplant began to die. Tissue death occurred due to complications with anti-rejection medications. The facial transplant was performed by a French surgeon Dr.Lantieri and his team. The patient has been said to be doing well and has even spent a recent weekend in Brittany.

In July 2010, due to a series of severely disfiguring tumors, Jerome Hamon had to undergo a full face transplant, with tear ducts and eyelids, during that time he was in his mid-30s. The first transplant turned out to be a failure after he got ill in 2015 as he was given drugs that interfered with the anti-rejection medicines he was taking for his face transplant. And in Last November, the tissue in his transplanted face began to die, forcing Lantieri to remove the first transplant.

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His condition without the face was terrible, and something of a "the walking dead." scene describes Mr. Hamon. His condition was close to nothing with only slight movement in the head. He had no eyelids, ears or skin; he could not even speak or eat.

"If you have no skin, you have infections," Lantieri told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "We were very concerned about the possibility of a new rejection."

Dr. Lantieri and his team were concerned with infections as the patient did not have an intact skin. And in January when the second face donor became available, they performed the second face transplant.

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But before undergoing the transplant, they had to replace all of the patient's blood to eliminate some potentially worrisome antibodies from previous medicine regimen.

"For a man who went through all this, which is like going through a nuclear war, he's doing fine," Lantieri said. The doctor also said that Hamon was now being monitored like any other face transplant patient.

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Hamon has managed to look younger after the second face transplant as the second patient was 38 years younger than the first donor. "I'm 43. The donor was 22. So I've become 20 years younger," joked Hamon.

Lantieri and his team are soon going to publish their findings in a medical journal in order to encourage people.

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Source-Medindia