Czech foundation awards surgeon Pomahač for face transplant

Prague, Oct 24 (CTK) - The Czech Transplant Foundation has bestowed its 2012 award for transplant medicine development on Czech-born surgeon Bohdan Pomahac, living in the USA, who has performed one of the first successful face transplants, foundation board chairman Stefan Vitko said Wednesday.

Pomahac will take over the award at a ceremony in Prague Charles University's Karolinum hall on Thursday evening, Vitko told reporters.

"We decided to give him the annual award since he had performed the first transplant of a whole face in the United States," Vitko said.

"This is a great honour for me," Pomahac said.

He appreciated both the interest in his work and the possibility to stay in Prague for a couple of days.

After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine in Olomouc, north Moravia, Pomahac left for the United States where he became a top surgeon, Vitko recalled.

People with mutilated faces or practically without a face were excluded from human society. However, the face transplant had been considered impossible for long, he said.

Czech surgeon Pomahac has proved that the transplant of a face, an organ that is not vital, is of extreme importance for the patient because it will return him/her back to life, Vitko said.

Pomahac with his team in the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has already performed four face transplants and a transplant of both hands in forearms.

"All patients have been living for over a year since the surgery. The very first one has been living for 3.5 years. They are all doing well. They have completely exceeded our expectations mainly in terms of the function renewal and because they have minimal or no complications," Pomahac said.

All patients receive minimal doses of immunosuppressive drugs which is probably why they suffer from very few undesirable effects.

Over 20 faces and some 60 hands have been transplanted all over the world.