PHOTOS: Face Transplant at Boston Hospital

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PHOTOS: Face Transplant at Boston Hospital
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A Boston hospital has performed the nation's second face transplant on a man who suffered traumatic facial injuries from a fall.

Click here for photos of the procedure (WARNING: photos are graphic)

Hospital spokesman Kevin Myron said the 17-hour operation took place Thursday at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. A team led by plastic surgeon Dr. Bohdan Pomahac (Bow-DAWN POE-mahawk) replaced the man's nose, palate, upper lip, and some skin, muscles and nerves with those of a dead donor.

The hospital would not identify the donor or the recipient in the face transplant surgery in Boston today, but plans a news conference Friday afternoon.

The first U.S. face transplant was done in December by doctors at Cleveland Clinic who replaced 80 percent of a woman's face with that of a female cadaver. The woman's identity has not been revealed, nor the circumstances that led to the transplant, except that her injury occurred several years ago.

The woman left the Cleveland hospital in February, and her progress was described as astonishing by her doctors.

The Boston surgery is the world's seventh face transplant, as an operation once considered the stuff of science fiction is suddenly becoming more common.

PHOTOS: Face Transplant at Boston Hospital