Stick Out Your Tongue!
07-23-2003, 02:34 PM
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Patient doing well after first human tongue transplant
Associated Press
VIENNA, AUSTRIA--The man believed to be the first recipient of a human tongue transplant was recovering Tuesday and showed no signs of rejecting the organ, his doctors said.
The 42-year-old patient, who had a malignant tumor on his tongue and part of his jaw, underwent a 14-hour operation Saturday in which doctors amputated his tongue and attached the new one removed from a brain-dead donor.
Surgeons who performed the transplant said there was no evidence in the medical literature that such an operation had been carried out on humans before.
"The tongue now looks as if it were his own -- it's as red and colorful and getting good blood circulation," said Dr. Rolf Ewers, head of the team of nine physicians who performed the operation in Vienna's General Hospital.
Patients who lose their tongues are never able to speak clearly or swallow again and must be fed through tubes.
Associated Press
VIENNA, AUSTRIA--The man believed to be the first recipient of a human tongue transplant was recovering Tuesday and showed no signs of rejecting the organ, his doctors said.
The 42-year-old patient, who had a malignant tumor on his tongue and part of his jaw, underwent a 14-hour operation Saturday in which doctors amputated his tongue and attached the new one removed from a brain-dead donor.
Surgeons who performed the transplant said there was no evidence in the medical literature that such an operation had been carried out on humans before.
"The tongue now looks as if it were his own -- it's as red and colorful and getting good blood circulation," said Dr. Rolf Ewers, head of the team of nine physicians who performed the operation in Vienna's General Hospital.
Patients who lose their tongues are never able to speak clearly or swallow again and must be fed through tubes.
