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Human head transplant just two years away, says Italian surgeon

IT sounds like the plot of a bad horror film, but doctors are gearing up to do the world’s first head transplant.

Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero wants to take the head from someone with an incurable illness and graft it on to a healthy body. He claims the first operation could be done in just two years’ time, Daily Mail reported.

The £7.5million body swap would initially be used to give a new lease of life to paralysed people – including those with spinal cord injuries similar to those sustained by the late actor Christopher Reeve, the report said.

People with muscle-wasting diseases and those whose organs are riddled with cancer could also have their head put on a new body, according to the report.

Those with motor neurone disease, the condition suffered by Stephen Hawking and portrayed by Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne in the film The Theory of Everything, might also benefit.

Eventually, the technique could be used to extend the life of healthy people in the "ultimate cosmetic surgery", the report said.

Critics have described the plans as "pure fantasy", but Dr Canavero claims all the necessary techniques exist and that he just needs to put them together. It is already more than 40 years since the first monkey head transplant and a basic operation on a mouse has just been done in China.

Dr Canavero already has a long list of potential patients, and will announce his plans at a top medical conference this summer in a bid to get the backing needed to do the first transplant in 2017, the report said.

The location has yet to be decided, but the surgeon, from the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, says he would love to do it in London, according to the report.




 

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