Editing Face transplant (section)

==Beneficiaries of face transplant==
People with faces [[disfigurement|disfigured]] by [[Physical trauma|trauma]], [[burn (injury)|burn]]s, disease, or [[birth defect]]s might aesthetically benefit from the procedure.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2516181.stm |title=Face transplants 'on the horizon' |work=BBC News  |date=27 November 2002 |access-date=10 May 2011}}</ref> Professor [[Peter Butler (surgeon)|Peter Butler]] at the [[Royal Free Hospital]] first suggested this approach in treating people with facial disfigurement in a ''Lancet'' article in 2002, though it had been discussed for a decade in the USA. This suggestion caused considerable debate at the time concerning the ethics of this procedure.<ref name="autogenerated1"/>

An alternative to a face transplant is facial reconstruction, which typically involves moving the patient's own skin from their back, buttocks, thighs, or chest to their face in a series of as many as 50 operations to regain even limited functionality, and a face that is often likened to a mask or a living [[quilt]].