An Italian neurosurgeon says it is possible to transplant human heads from one body to another to extend the lives of people whose muscles and nerves have deteriorated or whose organs are riddled with cancer.
Sergio Canavero said several people have already volunteered for a head transplant — which he believes could begin in 2017 — after he tests the procedure with brain-dead organ donors.
Canavero, a member of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, detailed the surgery in the journal Surgical Neurology International earlier this month.
“The greatest technical hurdle to [a head transplant] is of course the reconnection of the donor’s and recipient’s spinal cords,” he says in the paper. “It is my contention that the technology only now exists for such linkage.”
Gail Burton / AP PhotoPrecurssors to the first head transplant may be face transplants such as the one detailed by Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez on Richard Lee Norris, pictured at left, on March 27, 2012 at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
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He said a sharp severing of the spinal cord and the use of modern adhesives and sealants are the keys to success.
He discovered the importance of a clean cut as he reviewed cases of sharp wounds in the cords of patients who spontaneously recovered from paralysis.
In particular, Canavero cited the case in 1902 of a 26-year-old woman known as CN, whose spinal cord was severed by a 0.32-calibre bullet. The five physicians who examined the wound discovered a gap of three-quarters of an inch in CN’s spine.
Surgeons with some difficulty pulled the chord ends together with catgut sutures and 16 months later reported a partial return of function: “The patient slides out of bed into her chair by her own efforts and is able to stand with either hand on the back of a chair, thus supporting much of the weight of the body.”
East NewsItalian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero says he would flush stump ends with modern sealants such as polyethylene glycol plastic to fuse severed spinal cords.
Canavero said the sharp severing of the cervical cord in both the donor and recipient is the first of four steps to a successful head transplant:
• Preserving two millimetres of remaining cord to help rebridge the two stumps.
• Accelerating the rebridging with electrical stimulation across the fusion point.
• Flushing the stump ends with modern sealants such as polyethylene glycol to accomplish what doctors attempted in 1902 with catgut. The substances would seal injured and leaky neurons and simultaneously fuse severed axons with little scarring.
“Just like hot water makes dry spaghetti stick together, polyethylene glycol encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh,” explains New Scientist in a description of the surgery.
A head-transplant recipient would be kept in an induced coma for there to four weeks “to give time to the stumps to re-fuse (and avoid movements of the neck),” Canavero said in the paper. The recipient would also begin a regime of immunosuppression so the head does not reject the body.
FotoliaHead transplant surgery could succeed where spinal cord reattachment has failed, an Italian researcher says, with a combination of freezing the body and using a super-sharp saw.
The procedure begins with cooling the patient’s head and the donor body to minimize cell damage without oxygen. Surgeons next dissect the tissue around the recipient’s neck to expose the severing point and link major blood vessels on either side with tiny tubes.
Surgeons must remove the heads of both patients, located in the same operating theatre, at the same time; They have no more than one hour to re-connect the preserved head to the circulatory system of the donor body, in which total cardiac arrest must be induced.
Once the head is reconnected, surgeons restart the heart of the donor body and reconnect other vital systems, including the spinal cord, says the website Quartz of the procedure.
Janine Sot / Cleveland ClinicIn this September 2014 photo released Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, by the Cleveland Clinic, doctors work during transplant surgery to replace nearly the entire face of a middle-aged man severely disfigured in a car accident. It was the second face transplant performed at the hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. The recipient wished to remain anonymous.
A recipient would have the ability to feel and move their face, speak with the same voice and walk within a year with physiotherapy, the Italian neuroscientist says.
Canavero intends to announce the project in June at the annual conference of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons in Annapolis, Maryland.
He would like to carry out the experiment in the United States but it is unclear he would receive approval.
“The real stumbling block is the ethics,” he told New Scientist. Should this surgery be done at all? There are obviously going to be many people who disagree with it.”
Vall d'Hebron Hospital A Barcelona hospital says a young man was given an entire new face, including skin, jaws, chin, nose, cheeks, teeth and muscles in a 24-hour operation performed in late March, 2010 by a 30-member medical team.
Among the skeptics is Dr. Harry Goldsmith, who has performed one of the few surgeries that enabled someone with a spinal cord injury to regain the ability to walk.
“I don’t believe it will ever work, there are too many problems with the procedure,” he told New Scientist. “Trying to keep someone healthy in a coma for four weeks – it’s not going to happen.”
Canavero encourages the debate. “If society doesn’t want it, I won’t do it. But if people don’t want it in the U.S. or Europe, that doesn’t mean it won’t be done somewhere else. I’m trying to go about this the right way, but before going to the moon, you want to make sure people will follow you.”
He estimated a head transplant would cost US$13 million.