After being the first to receive a total face transplant in 2010, Jérôme Hamon, 43, is now the first man to have received a second face transplant. This medical feat was carried out by the team of Prof. Laurent Lantieri, at the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital. “This new transplant, the technical and immunological details of which will be the subject of a scientific publication, makes it possible to answer questions of risk and long-term benefit”, explains the Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP).
A rejection caused by antibiotics
Jérôme has Von Recklinghausen’s disease, or type 1 neurofibromatosis, a genetic disease that has completely deformed his face. In 2010, he benefited from a face transplant also performed by Prof. Laurent Lantieri, but this time at the Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil. Everything is going well, until the take antibiotic, to treat a cold, interferes with its immunosuppressive treatment.
In 2016, Jérôme began to develop signs of chronic rejection, his face deteriorated. In the summer of 2017, when he was showing signs of necrosis, doctors decided to urgently withdraw his transplant. He will wait 3 months at the Georges-Pompidou hospital in intensive care, without being able to hear, see or speak, the time that the Biomedicine Agency reports a donor compatible. During this time, Jérôme Hamon undergoes a heavy treatment in order to eliminate the antibodies which he developed against his first transplant and to put his immune system back to rest.
The man with three faces is doing well
Operated again on January 15th, the donor is a 22-year-old young man who died several hundred kilometers from Paris. For transport, the graft was immersed in a conventional solution but, in addition, benefited from the properties of seaworm hemoglobin to guarantee tissue oxygenation.
The patient was in the hospital for 3 months and is about to be discharged. Psychological help, as well as speech therapy will continue for many more months. After having gone through so much ordeal, Jérôme Hamon has not yet lost his humor: “I am 43 years old, the donor was 22 years old, so I got 22 years younger”, he confides to BFMTV .
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