Forty-five days in intensive care came next, followed by nearly two months of inpatient rehab, Dimeo learned to open his new eyelids, to move his new hands, and to smile. Nerves and vasculature were spliced together, to bring blood and eventually feeling to the tissue.Īfter 23 hours of surgery, the final stitch was made. ![]() Each structure had to be labeled, he added, to ensure proper reassembly.Īfter Dimeo’s face was removed, small plates were put on his chin to help attach his new face, and the bridge of the donor’s nose was grafted in place of his own. ![]() “We have to replace 21 tendons, three major nerves, five major vessels, two major bones,” Rodriguez said of each hand. The right hand, Dimeo’s dominant hand, came first. The operation was one that could very well have ended Dimeo’s life if not done correctly, Rodriguez said.Īt Dimeo’s arms, each radius and ulna bone was carefully cut, along with a host of tendons, muscles, veins and nerves, to prepare him for the new limbs. In the other operating room, Dimeo’s own hands and face were removed with precise cuts, to prepare him for the donor tissue. “In all these operations it’s important to recognize that someone must give up their life so that others can continue living.” “We always begin the operation with a moment of silence to honor the donor family, to respect their great loss, to never forget the donations that have been made,” Rodriguez said. In one, the hands and facial tissue of a dying donor were carefully removed and replaced with 3D printed prosthetics. The operation took 80 people across six surgical teams and two adjoining operating rooms.ĭimeo recovering from burns after his 2018 accident. “Joe is healthy, he’s young, he’s strong, he loves to exercise, he eats healthy, and he had that one special element which is going to be required for this operation,” Rodriguez said, “A high level of motivation. “We needed to avoid infection, we needed to have this operation occur as fast as possible, we had to be very selective with the donor, and we had to implement every state of the art technology that would ensure complete success of Joe’s operation, and that’s exactly what we did.” There have only been two previous attempts to complete such a surgery – to transplant a patient’s face and both hands – worldwide. “So fundamentally there was no reason why they couldn’t occur together, successfully.” “There have been over a hundred hand transplants performed successfully, and close to 50 face transplants,” Rodriguez said. Though the surgery occurred in August of last year, Dimeo’s doctors waited to ensure the transplants were not rejected before calling the operation a success. Eduardo Rodriguez, head of the team that completed the unprecedented surgery, told reporters at a Wednesday news briefing. “He’s the most highly motivated patient I’ve ever met,” Dr. ![]() On Wednesday, doctors at NYU Langone Medical Center announced that, following 23 grueling hours of surgery, the now-22-year-old Dimeo was on the road to gaining his life back as the recipient of the world’s first successful face and hands transplant.
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