Sergio Canavero, MD, pitched his latest plan at the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons' 39th annual conference to perform the world's first head transplant surgery. Dr. Canavero wants to forgo the ethics risks on the controversial procedure in order to make progress in the medical field.
Here are 10 key notes:
1. Dr. Canavero claims he is capable of performing a head transplant in a mere two years.
2. In order for the procedure to take place, he must acquire $100 million, 150 surgeons, 36 hours in operating rooms, a body and a volunteer.
3. Valery Spiridonov has offered to undergo the risk of head transplant surgery as a treatment option for his degenerative muscular condition called Werdnig-Hoffmann disease.
4. The project, named HEAVEN-Gemini, is short for the phrase head anastomosis venture.
5. The procedure would entail linking the blood supply between the head and donor body by using an extremely sharp blade to ensure fibers in the spinal cord have clean ends before trying to connect them.
6. In order to facilitate new connections and stimulation between the fibers in the spinal cord, Dr. Canavero will use a chemical called polyethylene glycol.
7. The goal of the transplant will be to cure people suffering from rare cases including cases like Mr. Spiridonov.
8. The transplant is controversial because it does not require only a single organ. Rather, it begs the question of who is the donor and who is the recipient.
9. Arthur Caplan, head of bioethics at New York Unversity's Langone Medical Center, claims Dr. Canavero's motive may be to achieve status in the medical community. Dr. Canavero's research has only been published in open-access journals, which may not have been screened with the same scrutiny as other mainstream publications.
10. Mr. Caplan claims even if such a transplant were possible, the patient would not survive more than five to 10 years because high doses of immunosuppressive drugs can be toxic for patients.
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