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In This Issue:
Elof Eriksson, Laurent Lantieri, Joseph Murray and Bohdan Pomahac meet at BWH.
Laurent Lantieri, MD, the only surgeon in the world to perform four face transplants, visited BWH in April to speak during Grand Rounds for Plastic Surgery and meet with BWH transplant pioneers, including Joseph Murray, MD, Bohdan Pomahac, MD, and Elof Eriksson, MD, PhD.
The four surgeons spoke of the need to share information about face transplant surgery with other hospitals performing the procedure and to communicate the option for transplant to patients.
“I was thinking of between 200 and 300 veterans who can’t be helped by conventional surgery and should have the option for this,” Lantieri said. “But it must be the patient’s choice to have the procedure.”
Lantieri was impressed with the BWH Face Transplant Program, which completed the second partial face transplant in the U.S. in April 2009. “It’s the best team in the U.S. today,” Lantieri said. “It’s not about ego—this team wants to do this for the patient.”
“We are hopeful that there is a growing sense of community among the centers that perform face transplants and that we can cooperate and share with each other,” said Pomahac. “Dr. Lantieri and his team are unique: there are only two places that have completed more than one transplant.”
Murray reflected on the world’s first human transplant, a kidney from one twin to another, which he and his team performed at BWH in 1954. “People asked if I ever dreamed we’d be transplanting multiple organs,” he said. “Of course I didn’t. It’s truly thrilling to be part of the medical profession and to be alive to witness this.”
He added, “We never know what the future holds. But we know it’s going to be good.”