This is once again the stuff of science fiction, and who knows if it will – or should – ever become fact. Surgeons have been able to do face transplants successfully. Now Italian surgeon Dr Sergio Canavero believes it is possible to do a full head transplant, and that impossible is ‘only a way of the mind’. Colleagues in Germany, including a  professor and a neurosurgeon, say it’s not possible for there ever to be a successful head transplant. They also say that if it were to be possible, ethical issues would be huge obstacles.  Canavero is used to the nay-sayers, and has already done what his colleagues believed was impossible. My money’s on him. – Marika Sboros
From News24
Dr Sergio Canavero. Picture: YouTube
Berlin – An Italian surgeon claims he will be ready to undertake a head transplant in 2017, although colleagues elsewhere doubt the technical feasibility of the operation, quite apart from the ethical nightmare that will result if it goes wrong.
Turin neurosurgeon Dr Sergio Canavero is to present his case to the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons (AANOS) in Annapolis, Maryland, in June.
“I think we are now at a point when the technical aspects are all feasible,” Canavero told the journal New Scientist, adding that he already has potential candidates for the operation
Dr Edgar Biemer, a German professor whose team carried out a ground-breaking double-arm transplant in 2008, takes a different view.
“It’s impossible. It’s speculative and there’s nothing of this kind on the horizon into the distant future,” Biemer, now retired, told DPA.
Canavero was not available for comment. According to AANOS, he has been investigating the possibility of a head transplant for the past 30 years, although little is known of his work.
Brain-dead donor
According to the New Scientist article, Canavero plans to cool the bodies of a brain-dead donor and of the recipient, so that the cells can survive as long as possible without oxygen. Hundreds of doctors are to be involved.
The key point would be to sever the spinal cords of both cleanly.
Dr Veit Braun, head of neurosurgery at Siegen Hospital in Germany, says it can’t be done.
“After you cut the spinal cord from the head, you can never put it back together again,” he told DPA.
“It won’t work,” the professor said bluntly. At best the patient will end up with a functioning brain unable to communicate with its new body.
“This is extremely unethical,” he said.
Canavero plans to fuse the two spinal cords, which he compares with two densely packed bundles of uncooked spaghetti, by flushing the area with polyethylene glycol.
Just as hot water makes dry spaghetti stick together, polyethylene glycol encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh, according to the New Scientist article.
There have been several experiments in doing this with animals, but none of the animals has survived more than a couple of days.
Mouse head
Ren Xiao-Ping of China’s Harbin Medical University transplanted a mouse’s head in 2013.
Ren told China’s People’s daily that Canavero had been in touch with him, asking for advice.
Canavero’s patient is to spend three to four weeks in an induced coma after the operation. After being brought out of it, the patient should be able to speak. After a year’s physiotherapy, he would have enough control over his new body to walk.
The operation itself is expected to take 36 hours and cost more than $10m.
A Russian computer programmer, Valery Spiridonov, aged 30, has volunteered to be the first to have his head transplanted onto a healthy body.
Spiridonov suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, a muscle-wasting disease, and is confined to a wheelchair.
“I know that I might die on the operating table,” he said, but added: “My decision is final and I do not plan to change my mind…
“I am scared. But what people don’t really understand is that I don’t really have many choices,” he said.
Spiridonov takes the view that he does not have long to live in any case.
Believing he has surmounted the technical problems, Canavero acknowledges the ethical issues are considerable.
“Should an operation like this be carried out at all? There will apparently be many people who do not think so,” he said. News24/DPA