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Transplant woman gains feeling
11/01/2006 07:46 - (SA)
Paris - The French woman who received the world's first partial face transplant is steadily regaining sensation in her new nose, chin and lips, her psychiatrist said on Tuesday.
Isabelle - she is identified in France only by her first name because of privacy laws - has regained some sensation in her new features and, in tests, can localise where she is being touched, Dr Daniele Bachmann said.
The psychiatrist said she believed Isabelle has not yet regained the ability to feel temperatures.
"She is very happy, she is doing very well," Bachmann said. It was still unclear how long Isabelle will remain hospitalised, said Bachmann, one of two psychiatrists who has treated Isabelle in the southern city of Lyon.
"That is in discussion with her, she would like to go home but that will depend on her therapy and treatment," she said.
The 38-year-old patient transferred out of a hospital in Lyon last week and returned to a hospital in Amiens, the northern town where the groundbreaking transplant surgery was performed, Bachmann said.
The surgery was carried out on November 27; the patient was brought to Lyon afterward. She will continue to shuttle between the two medical centres for treatment.
The face transplant patient, a divorced mother of two, received her new nose, chin and lips from a brain-dead donor. She had been disfigured last year when she was mauled by her pet Labrador.
- AP
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