French man receives face transplant

French doctors have performed a partial face transplant on a 29-year-old man with a disfiguring inherited disease.

"The patient is doing well from a surgical point of view," chiefDr. Laurent Lantieri told a news conference in Paris on Tuesday."We will have to wait many months for the results," he added, to see if the patient's immune system would reject the new face.

The man has neurofibromatosis, which causes grotesque lesions on the face. The condition resembles the disorder that affected Joseph Merrick, who was depicted in the film The Elephant Man.

DuringSunday's 15-hour operation at Henri-Mondor hospital in the Paris suburb of Creteil, surgeons gave the man a new nose, face and chin.

In 2005, a French woman disfigured by her pet dog became the first person in the world to have a partial face transplant. Since Isabelle Dinoire received the lips, nose and chin of a brain-dead woman, she has gained more sensitivity and facial mobility, doctors said in November, one year after the operation.

In April last year, Chinese doctors said they performed a partial face transplant on a 30-year-old Chinese farm worker who was attacked by a bear.

British and American doctors are planning full-face transplants. An ethics panel at a London hospital has approved one of the plans.