Abstract
The first clinical face allotransplantation was performed by Devauchelle et al in
2005, and currently 13 facial allotransplantations have been performed worldwide.
Reports on almost half of the cases were published in the literature, focusing on
technical details of facial allograft inset to the recipient face. There are only
few reports describing technical details of recovery of the facial allograft from
the human donor. In this article, we summarize our cadaveric studies describing the
methods of facial flap recovery in the cadaveric model and as well as mock facial
transplantation. Based on our experience with the first case of face transplantation,
we describe the sequence of facial graft procurement from the human donor and compare
similarities and differences between our case and previously published cases. Furthermore,
we discuss different methods of restoration of the donor face and have outlined proposed
guidelines for the sequence of donor operation for facial graft procurement.
Keywords
face procurement - facial allograft procurement - donor face reconstruction - composite
tissue allograft - guidelines for face procurement