Turkey's sixth face transplant man dies

Salih Üslün, a farmer from the northwestern province of Edirne, who had a full-face transplant 10 months ago, died of respiratory failure at the intensive care unit of Turkey''s Akdeniz University Hospital on Thursday night.

Surgeons decided to perform another operation on Üslün to remove a portion of the face's soft tissue due to the histo-incompatibility. The 55-year-old moved to the intensive care unit after 60 percent of his face was removed and a piece of skin, taken out of his right leg, was transplanted on his face on 16 June in surgery that lasted five hours.

The farmer lost his life 18 days after the operation, when his body could not tolerate symptoms of immunologic dissimilarity. Üslün''s condition had progressively become worse in the week following the surgery, in which his lower and upper jaw bones had not been removed.

Prof. Ömer Özkan, a cosmetic surgeon from the Akdeniz University Hospital, carried out the surgery, using organs from a donor, a 31-year-old man who was declared brain dead after a car accident. The 7-hour transplant gave Üslün a new face, including jaw, hairy scalp and tongue.

Üslün had received the full face transplant after a gun accident had destroyed his chin, lips, teeth and nose.