Neurosurgeon to attempt world's first head transplant.
I have not as yet studied this in any detail as yet. but I had no idea that the Medical Profession was potentially so advanced..and the thoughts of this are beyond my imagination , and I wonder how this will effect the patients brain..or if the brain will be is also to be transplanted or if the new head contains another brain within its head..
Patient will be 30-year-old Russian Valery Spiridonov, who suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann, a muscle-wasting disease.
An Italian neurosurgeon has unveiled plans to perform the first human head transplant by the end of 2017.
Dr Sergio Canavero announced his plan at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons in the US state of Maryland on Friday, saying he believes he has a 90 percent chance of success.
He said his patient will be a 30-year-old Russian man, Valery Spiridonov, who has the muscle-wasting disease, Werdnig-Hoffmann.
"Of course there is a margin of risk, I cannot deny that," Canavero said.
"I made the announcement only when I was pretty sure I could do it."
Both men, who have been in regular contact through video chats, believe the controversial procedure is Spiridonov's best hope, the Reuters news agency reported.
"If it goes good, I think I will get rid of the limits which I have today and I will be more independent and this will much improve my life," Spiridonov said.
"We are making a huge step forward in science and I hope it will be OK."
Canavero is quick to point out that few with Werdnig-Hoffmann disease reach adulthood.
"He is a brave man and he is in horrible condition. You have to understand - for him, Western medicine has nothing to offer. Western medicine has failed."
Surgical team of 100
Canavero will need the support of his peers in order to move forward on the operation which could cost around $15m.
Cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr Raymond Dieter, a former president of the International College Of Surgeons, said one of the biggest concerns with the procedure was keeping the brain alive during the surgery.
"When you think you are doing a heart transplant, or a kidney transplant, or a liver transplant, you have to cool those organs to give you a longer period of … surgical time before you reconnect all the vessels and you start reperfusion," Dieter said.
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"We've seen several professors criticising Dr Canavero's work but you know, there was criticism for the first heart transplant as well and now it's commonplace."
The operation, which would require a team of more than 100 medical workers and could take 36 hours to complete, could take place in the US or China.
Canavero plans to carry out the procedure in December 2017.
"I prepared myself not only scientifically, but also psychologically which is equally important in order to tackle all of these attacks from several fronts, in order to justify what you want to do, why you want to do, you have to prepare yourself," Canavero said.
"This is a frontier, the final frontier. It's not space. This is it because it has implications that go well beyond religion, culture, the future, everything."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/neurosurgeon-attempt-world-head-transplant-150613072123910.html --------------
Surgeon promising first human head transplant makes US pitch
An Italian neurosurgeon's project to undertake the first human head transplant has received a skeptical welcome in the United States, where he made a pitch to donors and fellow scientists.
Sergio Canavero, who leads the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, first announced his project in 2013, saying at the time that such a procedure could be possible as soon as 2016.
But this timeline seems extremely unlikely given the numerous obstacles and gaps in knowledge.
Canavero, who made a 2.5-hour presentation Friday at a conference of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgeons in Annapolis, Maryland, met for the first time there a man who volunteered for the world's first head transplant.
Russian-born Valery Spiridonov, 30, suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, which is a progressive and incurable wasting ailment. He was among the 150-some conference participants.
Invited to speak at the start of the conference, Canavero described at length how he would mend a severed spinal cord -- a crucial factor in any such surgery -- and described advances in the field, especially on animals.
The secret is to use a nano blade to cut the cord, then polyethylene glycol and an electrical current to accelerate the reconnection of severed nerve fibers.
But he admitted his knowledge was incomplete and didn't go into much detail about the profusion of other major problems that could be expected with such an unfathomably drastic operation.
Among those issues is how to maintain and restore blood flow to the brain, or how to reconnect the parasympathetic nervous system, a key component of an organism's automatic functions.
- 'Be Americans' -
Marc Stevens, an orthopedic surgeon from Smithfield, North Carolina who was attending the conference, said Canavero's presentation was intriguing but more research should be done on healing spinal cord injuries instead of attempting a head transplant.
Jerry Silver, a Case Western Reserve University neurosciences professor, cautioned that spinal reconnection science touted by Canavero was far from ready, noting the difficulties involved in reattaching the vagus nerve, which controls a variety of functions including digestion and heart rates.
At the end of his presentation, Canavero asked his US peers for help -- both with the science and the cash needed for the project.
"I did my homework and now I am asking you to help," he said.
"Let's suspend all judgment. What you have been taught is wrong.
"I need your help and I need your assistance. Be Americans," he added.
Likening his project to former president John F. Kennedy's Apollo mission to send men to the moon in the 1960s, he called on "billionaires like Bill Gates to give money for this project."
He has previously said he needed about $100 million for his work.
Animal experiments in the 1970s in America saw Robert White transplant heads on monkeys, but he was unable to restore spinal function and the creatures soon died.
http://news.yahoo.com/surgeon-promising-first-human-head-transplant-makes-us-201123086.html
