Chinese man has face transplant

A Chinese man whose face was badly disfigured after an attack by a black bear received a partial face transplant today, in a cutting-edge medical procedure that a hospital statement described as a first for China.

A statement from Xijing Hospital, a military hospital in the central city of Xi’an, said Li Guoxing was given a new cheek, upper lip, nose, and an eyebrow from a single donor. No details were given about the donor.

“Up to now, the patient is in good condition,” the statement said.

“The operation was successful. It is predicted that the wounds can be healed within one week.”

The hospital’s claims, if verified by independent experts, would make China the second country to conduct the procedure.

But it also underscores China’s growing scientific prowess while raising questions about its patchy regulation of medical experiments.

“China always has a group of people who like to be on the cutting-edge of scientific development,” said William Hsiao, a health economist at Harvard University who researches Chinese public health.

Over the past decade, the government has poured money into advanced scientific fields, from aerospace to biotechnology, directing grant money and pooling resources to create research centres to rival the West.

China is only the third country with a successful manned space programme, and its gene research has won praise from scientists abroad.

The partial face transplant comes only half a year after doctors in Amiens, France, performed the world’s first such procedure, transplanting lips, a chin and a nose on to a woman who had been attacked by a dog.

In its statement, the Chinese hospital said Li had been badly mauled in an encounter with a black bear in the southern province of Yunnan two years ago.

Photos released by the hospital showed the extent of Li’s injuries, his right eye nearly closed and the cheek and lip badly ripped exposing pink flesh.

Another photo showed Li, after the operation, lying with a tube in his mouth, his face puffy and with surgical scars running from his lower left ear above his nose to his right ear and around his chin.

Li’s surgery began yesterday afternoon and was completed this morning, the hospital statement said.

Additional details, including how doctors found Li and whether he had consented to the publicity, were not immediately available.

Chinese and foreign experts have previously criticised the government for lax oversight of research and said that the push for breakthroughs was creating ethical problems.

The government tightened up regulations on research and clinical drug trials after Chinese reporters accused a US-funded project of conducting research on asthma medication without the proper consent of farmers in central China in the 1990s.