OREANDA-NEWS. American surgeons for the first time in the world performed a successful operation for the simultaneous transplantation of the face and both hands of a patient, who suffered from burns after an road accident. This is reported by the «Associated Press».

According to the publication, in 2018, a resident of New Jersey, Joe Dimeo, was returning home from a night shift and fell asleep at the wheel. His car crashed into a guardrail, overturned and caught fire. The man suffered burns to 80 percent of his body.

After the road accident, Dimeo spent four months in the hospital and underwent 20 operations. He lost his fingers, his eyelids, and there were scars on his face and neck. In 2019, doctors decided to transplant the face and hands from a dead donor. During the operation, which lasted 23 hours, the patient was transplanted all the skin and cartilage from the hairline to the neck, fragments of the zygomatic arches, the bones of the nose and lower jaw.

Six months after the transplant, Dimeo was able to blink, raise his eyebrows, wince, and dress himself, play with his dog, and even play golf. But to prevent tissue rejection, he will have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of his life.