The most extensive face transplant performed by surgeons at NYU Langone Medical Center

Face transplants are slowly becoming an everyday surgery in the world. Just this past August, Dr. Eduardo Rodríguez performed one. In a 26-hour operation, the most extensive face transplant operation to date, the plastic surgeon and his team removed the face and scalp of a young victim of a fatal accident and successfully grafted the tissue onto the head of Patrick Hardison, a firefighter who had been horribly burned in a fire. The operation took place at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Organ transplantation has been around for a couple of decades. Since its inception in 1954, when surgeons at Boston’s Brigham Hospital transplanted a kidney, clinicians have been in a race to make transplants about pretty much everything: hands, uteruses, penises, livers, arms, and now faces. Dr. Rodriguez wishes face transplantations to be accessible for the needy. Nonetheless, issues of costs –this last operation cost $1 million– and also encouraging donations to come into play.

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