World's second face transplant patient goes home

A Chinese farmer who received a partial face transplant after he was badly disfigured in a bear attack has been discharged from hospital.

Li Guoxing, 30, who underwent surgery in Xijing Hospital in the central Chinese city of Xi’an, thanked doctors and nurses and said he was “very happy to go home,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The hospital, run by the People’s Liberation Army, said it was only the second time the complex procedure had been attempted anywhere in the world.

The state-run Beijing Youth Daily featured a photo of Li holding a bouquet of flowers. His face appeared swollen and stitches were still visible.

“When he took a train to Xi’an for his operation, he had to wear a mask,” the newspaper said. “Now he’s full of confidence and greeted everyone at the entrance of the airport for 20 minutes.”

Two doctors were accompanying Li back to his home in a poor, mountainous village in Yunnan, Xinhua said.

He will spend a week with his wife and two children before going back to the hospital for more treatment.

Li lost almost the whole right side of his face in 2003 after a black bear attacked him when he tried to chase it away from his cows with a stick.

On April 14, a team of 15 doctors and three nurses gave him a nose, upper lip, cheek and eyebrow from a brain-dead donor in a 15-hour procedure.

Since then, Li has been doing well and the swelling in his face has gone down, Guo Shuzhong, director of the hospital’s plastic surgery department, said.

Li now has some facial hair and acne – signs that the transplant has been successful and that the skin is alive, Guo said.

He is likely to undergo additional surgery in the coming weeks “to make the right part of his face, his lips and eyes seem more natural,” Guo said.

Li, who speaks only the dialect of his Lisu ethnic minority group, said very little during a brief appearance for reporters in Kunming. The grafted skin appeared a shade fairer than his natural tone.

Because the muscles of his face were still healing, he remained expressionless. Water dribbled down his chin as he drank from a bottle.

Last year, doctors in Amiens, France, performed what was apparently the world’s first such procedure, transplanting lips, a chin and a nose on to a woman who had been attacked by a dog.