FRANCE: A woman who underwent the world's first partial face transplant regained consciousness 24 hours after the groundbreaking operation, and her first words were "Thank you", one of her doctors said.
Dr Bernard Devauchelle, a surgeon leading two teams who operated on the woman, said there were no post-surgical problems and she was doing fine.
The 38-year-old woman, a divorced mother of two teenage daughters whose name has not been disclosed, was mauled by a Labrador dog in May, leaving her with severe facial injuries. She underwent the transplant on Sunday at a hospital in Amiens, northern France. The donor was a brain-dead woman.
Dr Devauchelle told a news conference that, after the woman woke up, she put a finger on the tracheotomy tube in her throat and said "Merci". Behind him were projected images of the portions that were transplanted, a section of the nose, lips and chin.
Dr Devauchelle said that in terms of matching the skin colour and texture of the donor and recipient, the results of the surgery "surpassed our hopes".
The woman's injuries had made it difficult for her to speak and eat, her doctors said. However, since the surgery, she has eaten strawberries and chocolate, and drunk coffee and fruit juice.
Dr Jean-Michel Dubernard, the other lead surgeon in the operation, acknowledged that he had had initial reservations in the planning stages of the surgery, but added that when he saw the extent of the woman's disfigurement, "I no longer hesitated for a second".
He denied a French media report that the woman was attacked by the dog after she had passed out from having taken pills in a suicide attempt.
Instead, he said, the woman had taken a pill to try to sleep after a family argument and was bitten by the dog during the night. - (AP)