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Man with 3 faces: Frenchman gets 2nd face transplant

Complications led doctors to remove the first transplanted face, leaving Jerome Hamon in a condition his doctor described as 'the walking dead' until the second transplant.
Credit: PHILIPPE LOPEZ
Jerome Hamon, the first man in the world to twice undergo a face transplant after flu tablets incompatible with his anti-rejection treatment led to the first attempt to fail, poses on April 13, 2018 in Paris. (PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

LONDON (AP) — In a medical first, a French surgeon says he has performed a second face transplant on the same patient — who is now doing well and even spent a recent weekend in Brittany.

Dr. Laurent Lantieri of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris first transplanted a new face onto Jerome Hamon in 2010. But after getting ill in 2015, Hamon was given drugs that interfered with anti-rejection medicines he was taking for his face transplant.

Credit: PHILIPPE LOPEZ
Jerome Hamon, the first man in the world to twice undergo a face transplant after flu tablets incompatible with his anti-rejection treatment led to the first attempt to fail, poses on April 13, 2018 in Paris. (PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Last November, complications led Lantieri to remove the transplanted face. That left Hamon without a face, in a condition Lantieri describes as "the walking dead."

In January, a second transplant was conducted. Lantieri said Hamon is now recovering well.

Credit: PHILIPPE LOPEZ, This content is subject to copyright.
French medicine professor Laurent Lantieri, a specialist in hand and face transplant, poses next to a screen showing different steps of his patient Jerome Hamon's surgery on April 13, 2018. (PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Doctors say, as with other organ transplants, it's not unexpected that some face transplants need to be replaced.

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