At least 18 face transplants have been done around the world, starting with a French woman mauled by her dog in November 2005, said Dr. Maria Siemionow, at Cleveland Clinic. She did the first face transplant in the U.S. in December 2008.
Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has done three this year alone. The University of Pittsburgh plans to offer face transplantation soon.
—Dallas Wiens, a 25-year-old Texan severely disfigured in a power line accident, looked like a sock of flesh had been pulled over his face — no eyes or nose and barely a mouth. —Connie Culp, 48, an Ohio woman who was the first U.S. face transplant recipient, has made several television appearances and become an advocate for organ donation. The successes have led more hospitals to approve face transplant protocols.
So far, only two face transplant-related deaths have been reported, said Dr. John Barker, former director of plastic surgery research at the University of Louisville who is now a reconstructive medicine researcher at the University of Frankfurt in Germany.
The other was in Paris, a man who received a face and a double hand transplant. Overall, "I think it's gone fabulously," he said of face transplantation.