World first face transplant, with tear ducts

Updated at: 1401 PST, Friday, July 09, 2010 PARIS: French doctors have carried out a successful full-face transplant eyelids, tear ducts and all on a 35-year-old man, the hospital where the operation took place confirmed on Thursday. Doctors carried out the 12-hour operation June 26 and 27 on a patient afflicted with a face-disfiguring genetic disorder. The head surgeon, Laurent Lantieri, described the surgery as a world first because it included a difficult and unprecedented transplant of tear ducts and eyelids. A similar procedure carried out in Spain earlier this year replaced most of the face, but not the tear ducts.