Chinese woman with deformed face doctors grow a new face on her chest

Chinese doctors are ready to help a disfigured woman find a new face. They grow it right on her chest.

Surgeons will augment a woman's nose and mouth using her own tissues, and then transplant them onto her face. Local media report that the revolutionary operation should take place in about a year. The operation will cost about 500 thousand yuan (72.6 thousand dollars). It is expected that it will change the patient's life.

(6 photos in total)

Source: Daily Mail

A 27-year-old Chinese woman lost her nose, lips and cheeks at the age of two due to complications with a high temperature, the newspaper reports Huanqiu.com . Since then, she could hardly eat and talk. Besides, the poor girl has no fingers on her right hand.

Last year, a Chinese woman from a remote village in Hubei Province shared on the Internet her sad story about how she grew up with such a deformity. She published it under the pseudonym Ye Lv Zi. The publication attracted public attention, and many showed sympathy.

Dr. Li Qing Feng.

Various doctors began to offer their help in facial reconstruction. The public hospital No. 9 in Shanghai said that the woman's injury was caused by a rare form of sepsis. A team of hospital doctors led by a well-known orthopedic surgeon in China, Li Qing Feng, offered an innovative treatment plan to help the girl find a new face.

The medical team brought together specialists in the field of maxillofacial surgery and other areas. According to the plan, doctors will take a fascial fragment with vessels from the patient's thigh and grow it on her chest using tissue augmentation technology.

A place where doctors will grow a new face for the girl.

Dr. Li Qing Feng said in an interview with Shanghai Dragon TV: "The patient's facial features are not fully formed, and this distinguishes her from other people. Reconstruction of the internal structure of the nose and mouth will be more difficult than in ordinary burned or injured patients." According to the specialist, a team of doctors using 3D printing technology produced models of the current and potential facial features of the patient, which greatly simplified the reconstruction scheme.

3D models of the patient's face.

As soon as the new face is grown, doctors will transplant it into place. The patient will go through four stages of surgery within a year. On Monday, April 10, the Chinese woman had her first operation. It lasted 12 hours and was aimed at the initial modeling of the face shape.

Ye Lv Zi wrote on the social network Weibo in February that she was very grateful for the opportunity to start a new life. As she understood, it will take from two to three years to fully recover. She also said that the hospital asked not to worry about the cost of treatment before surgery.

Doctors demonstrated the stages of surgical intervention during a press conference.

The new technique of tissue cultivation was developed by Dr. Li Qing Feng and his team and in 2016 received the second place at the ceremony of awarding the Chinese National Prize in the field of scientific and technological progress. The team of doctors has already applied its technology to 42 patients.