Spain's National Health Service's Transplant Commission has today authorised two face transplants, which will be the first ever performed here in Spain and only the eighth and ninth in the world.

The coordinator of the National Organisation of Transplants, Rafael Matesanz, told a press conference that the operations will be performed in Valencia's La Fe hospital by Pedro Cavadas and his team of surgeons and in Sevilla's Virgen del Rocio hospital by Tomás Gomez.

So far, only seven other face transplants have been carried out, four in France, two in the USA and one in China.

The chosen patients are people with 'very pronounced' facial deformities and 'severe injuries' which prevent the proper functioning of the facial muscles, affecting vision and swallowing, i.e. it is not simply a question of aesthetics.  The patients will remain anonymous as will the donors.

It is hoped that the transplants will be carried out by the end of the year, but Matesanz pointed out that it was 'statistically very difficult' to find appropriate donors as both age and sex had to coincide, as did the blood group and approximate size.  'All these issues limit our possibilities,' he added, as does the issue of distance, since it is imperative that the operation be done 'as quickly as possible' once a donor is found.

He also made reference to the extreme complexity of operations of this type, adding that the skin would 'almost certainly' be rejected by the patient.  He said, however, that the rejection was 'easy to diagnose' and that modern treatments were 'very effective'.

Matesanz also reported that there were two other hospitals in Spain interested in carrying out facial transplants - the 12 de Octubre hospital in Madrid, and the Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge, in Catalunya.