It’s a first. Joe DiMeo, a 22-year-old man from New Jersey, underwent 23-hour surgery at New York University Hospital NYU on August 12. He presented no complications and participated in a press conference on Wednesday February 3.

Released from the hospital after several months of convalescence, the young man can already “do practically all” the gestures with his new hands, he explained to AFP, even if the lack of feelings still handicaps him.

As for the face, “as soon as I saw it for the first time, I said to myself: it’s my face now”, explained the one who was a tester for a pharmaceutical laboratory before his car accident.

“A second chance in life”

Victim of a lurch after falling asleep at the wheel of his vehicle in July 2018, he had been burned in the third degree on 80% of the surface of his body, losing in particular lips and eyelids.

The operation “gives me a second chance at life,” explained Joe DiMeo. “I can’t wait to get back to work.”

Dr Eduardo Rodriguez, in charge of the project, during a virtual press conference explained that “the only possibility that he would find a good quality of life was to consider a face and hand transplant”.

Amputated of several phalanges

During the twenty operations carried out thereafter, the surgeons had also amputated several phalanges.

According to analyzes from NYU Langone Hospital, the patient, with an immune system weakened by transfusions and skin grafts already carried out, risked rejection with 94% of donors.

100 people solicited for the operation

But with the help of a local association, Gift of Life, a compatible deceased donor has been identified. The operation, which had been repeated a dozen times, required six different surgical teams and nearly 100 people in total.

The surgeons cut out the donor’s face and removed several bony parts of the skull, cheekbones, nose and chin to ensure satisfactory alignment on Joe DiMeo’s face.

Risk of rejection

Although most face or hand transplant patients experience graft rejection within three months of the operation, which Joe DiMeo did not, “there is no guarantee that he does not reject “.

In addition to the immunosuppressive treatment, it is important that the patient does not receive shock on the transplanted parts, Professor Rodriguez told AFP, because a hematoma or a wound could cause rejection.

Several dozen face and hand transplants have already been performed separately, but the two previous known simultaneous transplants have ended in failure. The first patient to receive a triple transplant, in Créteil in April 2009, died of complications two months later.