Surgical, ethical, and psychosocial considerations in human head transplantation

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SURGERY

卷:41

Review

Furr, Allen¹  Hardy, Mark A.²  Barret, Juan P.³  Barker, John H.⁴ 

[1] Auburn Univ, Haley Ctr 7018, Auburn, AL 36849 USA

[2] Columbia Univ, Coll Phys & Surg, Dept Surg, 161 Ft,Washington Ave,Herbert Irving Pavil 5-549, New York, NY 10032 USA

[3] Univ Autonoma Barcelona, Univ Hosp Vall dHebron, Barcelona, Spain

[4] Goethe Univ Frankfurt, Friedrichsheim Orthoped Hosp, Frankfurt Initiat Regenerat Med Expt Orthoped & T, Haus 97 B,1OG,Marienburgstr 2, D-60528 Frankfurt, Germany

关键词: Head transplantation;    Composite tissue allotransplantation;    Vascularized composite allografts;    reconstructive transplant surgery;    Ethics;    Frontiers in surgery;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.ijsu.2017.01.077

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Transplanting a head and brain is perhaps the final frontier of organ transplantation. The goal of body-to-head transplantation (BHT) is to sustain the life of individuals who suffer from terminal disease, but whose head and brain are healthy. Ideally BHT could provide a lifesaving treatment for several conditions where none currently exists. BHT is no ordinary experiment, to transfer a head to another body involves extraordinarily complex medical challenges as well as ethical and existential dilemmas that were previously confined to the imagination of writers of fiction. The possibility of replacing an incurably ill body with a healthy one tests not only our surgical limits, but also the social and psychological boundaries of physical life and alters what we recognize life to be. The purpose of this target article, the complementary manuscript focused on immunological issues in BHT, and the accompanying Commentaries by scholars and practitioners in medicine, immunology, and bioethics is to review major surgical and psychosocial-ethical and immunological considerations surrounding body-to-head transplantation. We hope that together these ideas will provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the possibilities and challenges associated with BHT and initiate professional discussion and debate through which this new frontier in medicine is considered and approached. (C) 2017 IJS Publishing Group Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free