Amazing surgery: sucess of human head transplant

human head transplant

The Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero revealed during a press conference in Vienna to have realized and succeeded the first transplant of human head. This controversial person in the medical world said that the operation took place in China, in collaboration with the Xiaping Ren team of Harbin Medical University. "The surgery lasted 18 hours, everyone said it was impossible but it was a success," said Sergio Canavero, before giving the details of this first one, which consisted in assembling the body of a deceased donor and the head of a recipient, also deceased.

 It was from two cadavers that the operation was conducted by the Sino-Italian team. It was for her to verify the technical feasibility of this transplant in order to experiment on a patient alive. Suffering from the disease of Werdnig-Hoffman, close to the Charcot disease, Valery Spiridonov is among the candidates for this spectacular operation that is primarily intended for victims of incurable neuromuscular disorders. According to Canavero and Reng, the implantation of their head on a neuromuscular healthy body, could offer them an additional chance. Sergio Canavero also wants to believe that his work "will allow quadriplegics to walk and the brightest brains to never disappear". 

To achieve this first, the medical team first decapitated two corpses of donors. Then she tested the solution developed by Canavero head storage by hypothermia at 15 ° and set up a cross-blood circulation to maintain oxygenation of the brain. It was finally necessary to reconnect the head and the body. A long process of suturing blood vessels and nerves that ended with one of the main difficulties of this operation: get the stability of the head on his new body to successfully merge the spinal cord. A cervicothoracic orthosis was then placed on the reconstituted body.

To control the reconnection of both parties, surgeons reported using electrical stimulation of the nerves.

This human head transplant is the most important event this year that upset the medical community and substantiating by results proved that everything is possible with scientific evolution.