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Bear-mauled patient makes progress

— PHOTO: AP

Li Guoxing looks into a mirror as a doctor examines him after the surgery at Xijing Hospital in Xi'an on Tuesday.

XI'AN (CHINA): Although he has lived through a 24-hour post-operation critical period, Li Guoxing, China's first face transplant patient, still has to wait two months to know if the operation has been a success.

Mr. Li, a 30-year old whose face had been disfigured from an attack by a bear, received a partial face transplant operation in a north-western Chinese hospital on April 14, the second of its kind following a French female patient last year.

A man of Chinese Lisu ethnic minority, Mr. Li lives in a mountainous village in China's south-western province of Yunnan. In1997, Mr. Li was looking for his lost sheep on a mountain near his village when he saw a black bear eating it. Mr. Li picked up a wooden stick to try to drive the bear away, only to enrage the animal. The bear pounced on him and mauled his face. The bear's attack ended when Mr. Li's fellow villagers arrived at the scene, but the right side of his face and nose were almost lost. Mr. Li was immediately sent to a local hospital for treatment. His life was saved but the disfigurement remained as he could not afford plastic surgery.

After the attack, Mr. Li's life changed.

``The primary school where his teenage daughter studies did not even allow him to pick her up as teachers feared that his scarred face may scare the kids at school,'' a teacher at the school, said. Mr. Li waited nearly a month in Xijing Hospital in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, before the hospital found a male donor for him. The donor had been declared brain-dead.

During the 14-hour procedure that ended on April 14, Mr. Li was given a new cheek, upper lip, nose and an eyebrow. Doctors at the hospital claim that the operation was even more complex than the world's first such operation on 38-year-old Isabelle Dinoire.

The first thing that Mr. Li did after regaining consciousness was to ask for a mirror. Doctors said Mr. Li saw his new face in the mirror and was satisfied with the operation.

The final success of the transplant will depend on whether Mr. Li can get through an acute rejection period of one or two months.

— Xinhua

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