화재를 진압하다가 심한 화상을 입은 미국 소 방관이 얼굴과 두피, 상반신에 걸친 광범위한 안면 이식으로 새 얼굴을 갖게 됐다.
얼굴을 주고 세상을 떠난 장기기증자가 있었기에 가능한 일이었다.
AP통신 등 미국 언론들은 16일(현지시간) 미 뉴욕대(NYU) 랜건 메디컬센터가 지 난 8월 전 자원봉사 소방관인 패트릭 하디슨(41)에게 실시한 안면이식 수술 결과를 일제히 보도했다.
이어 아직 얼굴 밑부분의 부기가 완전히 빠지지 않았고, 물리치료가 남아있긴 하지만 하디슨이 이달말 추수감사절에 미시시피 주(州) 세너토비아에 있는 집으로 퇴원할 계획이라고 전했다.
2005년 프랑스에서 첫 안면이식 수술이 성공한 이래 전 세계에서 25건 안팎의 안면이식 수술이 실시됐다.
그러나 하디슨에 대한 수술은 이식된 조직을 기준으로 가장 넓은 면적이 성공적 으로 옮겨진 경우라고 수술을 집도한 에두아르도 로드리게스 박사가 이날 기자회견 에서 밝혔다.
하디슨의 경우, 정수리에서부터 얼굴과 두피를 거쳐 어깨 근처 쇄골까지의 모든 피부가 이식됐다. 머리 뒷부분의 경우도, 원래 머리카락이 조금만 남아 있을 정도로 넓은 부위에서 이식이 이뤄졌다.
두 귀를 모두 잃었던 하디슨에게는 귀도 새로 생겼다. 무엇보다 이 수술로 정상 시력을 기대하게 된 그는 "다시 자동차 운전을 시작하겠다"며 기뻐했다.
하디슨은 27살 때인 2001년 9월 5일 세너토비아에서 발생한 화재사고에 출동했 다가 머리와 목, 상반신 상부에 3도 화상을 입었다. 인명 구조를 위해 불타는 집으 로 들어갔는데 지붕이 무너졌다.
그는 이후 2개월에 걸쳐 테네시 주 멤피스에서 자신의 다리 피부를 머리로 이식 하는 수술을 받았지만, 귀와 입술, 코의 대부분을 회복할 수 없었다.
가장 큰 문제는 눈꺼풀 조직이 없어지면서 눈을 깜박일 수 없게 된 것이었다.
눈의 보호를 위해 남아 있던 눈꺼풀 조직에 다른 피부를 접합시키는 수술을 받았 지만, 눈은 작은 구멍의 형태로만 남았다.
그는 "아주 조금만 볼 수 있었다. 거의 시각장애인이 된 것"이라고 말했다.
얼굴 전체가 '하나의 거대한 흉터'로 남은 그는 무려 71차례의 수술을 이겨냈고 , 정상 생활을 해보려고 노력했지만 쉽지 않았다.
결국, 한 친구가 안면이식 수술의 경험이 있는 메릴랜드대 의과대학에 편지를 보내면서 얼굴을 제공할 기증자를 기다리는 삶이 시작됐다.
1년 뒤 그는 데이비드 로드버그라는 남성의 얼굴을 이식받을 수 있게 됐다.
뉴욕에서 활동하는 아티스트이자, 자전거 선수였던 이 남성은 뉴욕 브루클린의 거리에서 당한 자전거 사고로 숨졌다. 그는 생전 자신의 장기기증에 동의했다.
지난 8월 14일 26시간에 걸친 안면이식 대수술이 실시됐다.
피부를 뒤통수 쪽에서 봉합시켜 하디슨의 얼굴 정면에는 흉터가 남지 않았다.
3개월이 지난 현재, 하디슨은 피부이식 거부반응을 예방하는 약을 계속 먹어야 하고 눈꺼풀 수술도 더 받아야 한다.
그러나 이런 과정이 끝나면 사고 후 처음으로 비로소 정상적인 시야로 사물을 볼 수 있을 것으로 기대된다고 의료진은 밝혔다.
하디슨은 "이제야 평범한 보통 남자로 돌아온 것 같다"며 소방관 생활은 어렵겠 지만 강연 활동을 통해 자신과 비슷한 처지의 부상자들에 희망을 주고 싶다고 말했 다. (연합)
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Transplant gives new face, scalp to burned firefighter
A volunteer firefighter badly burned in a 2001 blaze has received the most extensive face transplant ever, covering his skull and much of his neck, a New York hospital announced Monday. The surgery took place in August at the NYU Langone Medical Center. The patient, 41-year-old Patrick Hardison, is still undergoing physical therapy at the hospital but plans to return home to Senatobia, Mississippi, in time for Thanksgiving.
The surgery has paved the way for him to regain normal vision, and in an interview last week he said that will let him accomplish a major goal: “I’ll start driving again.”
More than two dozen face transplants have been performed worldwide since the first one in France in 2005. Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the surgical team that did Hardison’s transplant and recently wrote a review of the field, said Hardison’s is by far the most extensive performed successfully in terms of the amount of tissue transferred.
The transplant extends from the top of the head, over Hardison’s skull and down to the collarbones in front; in back, it reaches far enough down that only a tiny patch of Hardison’s original hair remains _ its color matched by the dark blond hair growing on his new scalp. The transplant includes both ears.
It’s “a historic achievement,” said Dr. Amir Dorafshar, co-director of the face transplant program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the operation. “This type of treatment option will potentially revolutionize the care of patients with severe facial burn injuries.”
The surgery began Aug. 14 and lasted 26 hours. It left no scars on Hardison’s new face because the seam of the transplanted tissue runs down the back of his skull.
The donor was 26-year-old New York artist and competitive bicyclist David P. Rodebaugh. He had died of injuries from a biking accident on a Brooklyn street.
Hardison was burned Sept. 5, 2001, in Senatobia in northwestern Mississippi. A 27-year-old father of three at the time who’d served for seven years as a volunteer firefighter, he entered a burning house to search for a woman. The roof collapsed, giving him third-degree burns on his head, neck and upper torso.
He spent about two months at a Memphis, Tennessee, burn center. Doctors used a layer of skin from his legs to cover his wounded head, but he had lost his ears, lips, most of his nose and virtually all of his eyelid tissue.
Since he could not blink, doctors used skin grafts to reinforce what remained of his eyelids and sewed them nearly shut to protect his eyes. That left him with only pinhole vision.
“I was almost totally blind,” he recalled. “I could see just a little bit.”
His face was “one huge scar,” Rodriguez said. Hardison still went to baseball games and did other things outside, although people stared. He playfully told curious children that he had fought a bear. Still, he said, life was hard. He endured 71 surgeries.
Eventually a church friend of his wrote to Rodriguez, who had performed a 2012 face transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The doctor said he would try to help, and in August 2014 Hardison was placed on a waiting list.
“We were looking for the ideal donor,” one who matched Hardison on biological traits to minimize the risk of his body’s rejecting the new tissue, as well as things like skin and hair color, said Rodriguez, who by then had moved to NYU Langone.
A year later, Rodebaugh was identified as a potential donor by LiveOnNY, the nonprofit organization that seeks transplant organs and tissue in the New York City area. A native of the Columbus, Ohio, area, he had signed up to donate organs. His mother gave permission to use his face, noting that Rodebaugh had always wanted to be a firefighter, said LiveOnNY president Helen Irving.
The hospital paid for the transplant operation, which included attaching four bone segments to Hardison’s skull, as anchors to prevent the face from drooping.
Now, three months later, the lower part of his face remains swollen, but Rodriguez said that will go away in a few months. With his new eyelids and more surgery, he’s expected to regain a normal field of vision for the first time in more than a decade. He will have to continuing taking medications to prevent his body from rejecting the transplant.
Eventually, “a casual observer will not notice anything that is odd” in Hardison’s new face, which will blend features of his original face and the donor’s, Rodriguez said.
Hardison said his new face has already made a difference when he goes outside.
“I used to get stared at all the time, but now I’m just an average guy,” he said.
He’s been told he can’t return to firefighting because of insurance concerns, but he has another plan: motivational speaking or something similar, perhaps for wounded veterans.
His message? “Just how there is hope.” (AP)
