Facial Transplantation In Emerging Adulthood: Identifying Unique Support Needs To Promote Optimal Outcomes

Facial Transplantation In Emerging Adulthood: Identifying Unique Support Needs To Promote Optimal Outcomes | Zenodo Skip to main Communities My dashboard Log in Sign up Zenodo is currently experiencing slowness and intermittent outages due to heavy automated traffic from bots and AI crawlers. We are aware of the problem, and our team is focused on stabilizing the service. Thank you for your patience. 71st Annual Meeting Plastic Surgery Research Council - Los Angeles, California Published May 9, 2026 | Version v4 Conference paper Open Facial Transplantation In Emerging Adulthood: Identifying Unique Support Needs To Promote Optimal Outcomes Authors/Creators Michael Edward McKenna 1 Hailey P. Wyatt 1 Alexis K. Gursky 1 Eduardo D. Rodriguez 1 Laura L. Kimberly 1 Show affiliations 1.

Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery, NYU Langone Health, New York City, NY, USA Description Purpose: Facial Transplantation (FTx) stands at the forefront of innovative plastic surgery and transplant medicine. Through the transplantation of a vascularized graft of multiple types of tissue, facial transplantation offers aesthetic benefits as well as corrections in critical functional deficits such as breathing, eating, and speaking. Technical realization of the procedure was achieved in 2005. Since then, 53 FTxs have been performed, opening a new frontier in facial reconstruction which promises to profoundly alter the lives of patients with severe disfigurements that are not amenable to traditional reconstructive methods. However, FTx carries significant risks, including graft loss and adverse health impacts from lifelong immunosuppression. Given the procedure's risk-benefit profile, ethical considerations in FTx have been debated extensively, as surgeons, ethicists, and patients must grapple with issues of informed consent, lifelong immunosuppression, and longevity. While FTx has only been undertaken in the adult population, the ethics of undertaking pediatric FTx have received attention in the literature. Absent from these discussions, though, is the role of facial transplantation in emerging adults. Emerging adulthood describes the psychosocial stage of individuals aged 18-25, who occupy a middle ground between adolescence and adulthood. This analysis establishes emerging adults as a distinct patient population in FTx, assesses the challenges and opportunities of undertaking the procedure in this age group, and offers preliminary recommendations for supporting FTx recipients in this key life stage. METHODS: Drawing on literature at the intersection of transplant medicine and psychology, we conducted a conceptual ethics analysis of significant considerations for FTx in emerging adulthood. RESULTS: Over the last several decades, emerging adulthood has developed into an active area of investigation in the social sciences with unique developmental characteristics and associated benefits and concerns. Research in this domain illuminates the outsized role that experiences during this age play in shaping the trajectory of an individual's social bonds, livelihood, and worldview. Additionally, literature in neuroscience and solid organ transplant demonstrates that emerging adults typically have yet to achieve full cognitive maturity, despite holding the legal status of adulthood. This stage of cognitive development, in combination with newfound independence from the guiding social structures of adolescence, makes emerging adults particularly prone to high-risk behavior, including difficulty with recognizing long-term implications of health care decision-making and challenges with adherence to medical care. CONCLUSION: Given the complexity of and lifelong commitment to follow up for FTx recipients, it is critical to understand these challenges as they relate to informed consent and adherence. Recognizing emerging adults as a patient population with specific support needs will enable FTx programs to prioritize shared decision-making and offer tailored supports to optimize outcomes for this potentially transformative procedure in emerging adulthood.

*Source: https://ps-rc.org/meeting/Program/2026/EP20.cgi* Notes Abstract ID: EP20 Files PSRC2026_EP20.txt Files (4.1 kB) Name Size Download all PSRC2026_EP20.txt md5:60d30b8de260514fac1566ef78f74cc7 4.1 kB Preview Download 89 Views 17 Downloads Show more details All versions This version Views Total views 89 23 Downloads Total downloads 17 4 Data volume Total data volume 69.9 kB 16.4 kB More info on how stats are collected.... Versions External resources Indexed in OpenAIRE Communities Keywords and subjects Keywords plastic surgery reconstructive surgery conference abstract PSRC 2026 Details DOI DOI Badge DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20100009 Markdown [](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20100009) reStructuredText .. image:: https://zenodo.org/badge/DOI/10.5281/zenodo.20100009.svg :target: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20100009 HTML <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20100009"><img src="https://zenodo.org/badge/DOI/10.5281/zenodo.20100009.svg" alt="DOI"></a> Image URL https://zenodo.org/badge/DOI/10.5281/zenodo.20100009.svg Target URL https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20100009 Resource type Conference paper Publisher Zenodo Conference 71st Annual Meeting of the Plastic Surgery Research Council (PSRC 2026), Los Angeles, CA, USA, June 4-7, 2026 Rights License Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International No further description. Read more Citation Export Technical metadata Created May 9, 2026 Modified May 9, 2026 Jump up About About Policies Infrastructure Principles Projects Roadmap Contact Blog Blog Support Help FAQ Developers REST API OAI-PMH Contribute GitHub Donate Funded by Powered by CERN Data Centre & InvenioRDM Status Privacy policy Cookie policy Terms of Use This site uses cookies. Find out more on how we use cookies Accept all cookies Accept only essential cookies

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