Third face transplant completed

A team of Turkish doctors in Ankara conducted Turkey’s third face transplant operation on March 17, partially giving the face of a 28-year-old woman to a 20-year-old patient. Gazi University Faculty of Medicine performed the operation on Hatice Nergiz, who was reported to have lost a large amount of tissue in her nose, upper chin, palate and upper lip after she was shot five years ago. Nergiz has undergone 35 surgeries since losing part of her face in the gun accident in 2007. Ankara’s Gazi University Faculty of Medicine and Gazi Hospital’s chief doctor, Professor Dr. Sacit Turanli, said the surgery was successful and that Nergiz was now undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit. "We are very proud of the point that Turkish medicine has reached with the transplant operations," Turanli said, adding that the team of doctors who conducted the operation would soon issue a press announcement about the operation. The donor was a 28-year-old woman of Moldovan origin who lost her life in Istanbul on March 16, Turanli said. The operation is the third face transplant operation to have been performed in Turkey since the start of the year.