James Boysen was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma in 2006.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: James Boysen, 55, needed a new kidney and pancreas, but with an open head wound, the only way he could receive the organs he needed to survive was to have the entire top of his skull replaced as well.
Doctors from Houston Methodist Hospital and MD Anderson Cancer Center recently replaced the top of Boysen’s skull in what is being billed as the world’s first partial skull and scalp transplant, reported the Associated Press.
Boysen was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma in 2006. The cancer of the muscle on the scalp was treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but it permanently damaged the surrounding tissue. His scalp and skull were destroyed by the treatment, leaving his brain vulnerable, reported the BBC.
After the procedure, immune suppression drugs kept his body from repairing the damage, and his transplanted organs were starting to fail — “a perfect storm that made the wound not heal,” Boysen told AP.
Complicating matters was the fact that doctors could not perform a new kidney-pancreas transplant as long as he had an open wound. Dr. Jesse Selber, a reconstructive plastic surgeon at MD Anderson, came up with the plan of giving him a new partial skull and scalp at the same time as new organs to solve all his problems with one resolute swoop.
“This was a very complex surgery because we had to transplant the tissues utilizing microsurgery,” Dr. Michael Klebuc of Houston Methodist Hospital told the BBC. “Imagine connecting blood vessels one-sixteenth of an inch under a microscope with tiny stitches about half the diameter of a human hair being done with tools that one would use to make a fine Swiss watch.”