The first American to have a full face transplant, Dallas Wiens, will address the media during a press conference on Monday, April 2, at 11 a.m. Eastern Time, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Wiens will speak with the media about his experiences as a father following a transplant as well as his work with the About Face Foundation, a humanitarian organization he started.
Over the course of more than 15 hours of labor, the team of more than 30 doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, and residents entirely reconstructed the patient Dallas Wiens’s facial area. During this procedure, the patient’s lips, nose, skin, face muscles, and nerves that supply them with power and sensation were all replaced.
The experts at New England Organ Bank were able to get the donor’s family to agree to the donation of the tissue graft extracted from their face after speaking with them. The approval of the donor’s family is required for face donation; the act of registering one’s driver’s license as an organ and tissue donor is not accepted as legitimate consent.
It’s well acknowledged that the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is in the forefront of promoting and performing this possibly life-saving procedure. The Department of Defense (DoD) of the United States is funding the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Face Transplant Program, which is actively looking for suitable candidates for face transplantation. Find out additional details on the BWH face transplant surgery program and the research that produced the breakthrough.
Many people now consider Brigham and Women’s Hospital to be among the world’s most cutting-edge transplant facilities.
The first human organ donor transplant—a kidney transplant from one brother to another—was successfully carried out in 1954 by a team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital under the direction of Dr. Joseph Murray. In 1990, Dr. Murray received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in recognition of his contributions to this discipline.
In 1984, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) carried out the first heart transplant in the state of Massachusetts. The hospital successfully performed its 600th heart transplant this year.
The state of Massachusetts witnessed its first heart-lung transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1992.
In addition, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital carried out the nation’s first triple organ transplant in 1995 and its first quintuple lung transplant in 2004.
With over 30 lung transplants completed in 2008, BWH was among the top US hospitals in terms of volume. For the first time in its existence, the hospital performed 100 kidney transplants in a single year in 2006. This was a significant accomplishment.
