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Post by Moose on Sept 7, 2016 0:03:38 GMT
Isabelle Dinoire, the world's first recipient of a face transplant, has apparently died - in fact died some months ago but news of her death are only just emerging. There are no real details yet as to what happened though it had been reported that her face was starting to reject.
I did wonder if something like this would happen and I wonder about the future of the other recipients of this sort of transplant. One estimate that I read somewhere said that a new face should last 'around twenty years' .. well, that's really not all that long if the recipient is only 30. It did not say what was likely to happen if and when the face rejected.
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Post by tangent on Sept 7, 2016 6:36:44 GMT
If a transplant is rejected, I imagine it is rejected almost straight away. To avoid this, the patient has to take strong anti-rejection drugs that weaken the immune system. I understand that in this case, the patient died of cancer possibly as a result of taking the drugs.
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Post by Moose on Sept 7, 2016 19:31:42 GMT
No, a transplant can be rejected several years down the road, even if the person does not stop taking the drugs. There is a suggestion that she was suffering some rejection problems also.
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