A new face forward

A team of U.S. doctors perform the first near-total face tranplant in the United States.

To prevent rejection, doctors say the U.S. patient will have to take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of her life.

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Missing an eye and most of her nose and upper jaw, surgeons say the woman represented in these animations had learned to live in the shadows.

SOUNDBITE: Dr. Maria Sieminow, Cleveland Clinic lead surgeon, saying (English):

"Children were afraid of her. they were running away. The patient was brave - she was very stable in facing the world. However it became difficult for her just to go outside her house."

Dr.Maria Sieminow led a team of surgeons at Ohio's Cleveland Clinic in a 22-hour surgery to replace 80 percent of her disfigured face. They gave no details about the woman, how she was injured, or who the deceased donor was.

Now with transplanted bone teeth muscle and nerves, Dr. Eric Kodish says their patient is one step closer to the light.

SOUNDBITE: Dr. Eric Kodish, Cleveland Clinic bioethicist, saying (English): "We have hope that our patient will begin to smile again, will be able to smell again and we hope that other similarly injured patients, if they undergo this technique, will get function back."

In 2005, French surgeons performed the first partial face transplant on a woman who had been attacked by her dog. Last year, doctors reported that she has recovered slowly but surely...overcoming two episodes of her body rejecting its transplanted face.

The Cleveland operation was only the fourth face transplant ever and the first in the United States.

(Reuters)