Ed Jones, Modern Readers, Apr 14, 2015
The prospect of surgery is never pleasant, but when you're being prepped ahead of taking part in the world's very first human head transplant...well, spare a thought for poor Valery Spiridonov. This 30-year-old computer scientists will in the very near future become either a tragic statistic, or the first person in human history to go on to a new life with his own head on a full donor body.
Mr Spiridonov suffers from a devastating muscle wasting disease which will ultimately destroy and claim his life at a young age - a disease for which there is no cure. As something of a last-resort therefore, he has volunteered to undergo the incredibly controversial procedure which will see his whole head removed and surgically attached to the healthy body of a deceased donor.
"I am afraid, but what people don't really understand is I don't really have many choices," said the Russian patient.
"If I don't try this out my fate will be very sad. With every year my situation is getting worse,"
"My decision is final and I do not plan to change my mind."
Italy's Dr Sergio Canavero will lead the operation, though has already faced fierce criticism from many of the world's leading surgeons for even contemplating a procedure most consider to be 100% impossible. There is little to no evidence available to suggest that Mr Spiridonov would survive the procedure and some are concerned that even if he does live through the procedure, he could find himself facing an even worse fate than had he died during surgery.
Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons, told CNN:
"I would not wish this on anyone. I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death," said Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons
In an interview with New Scientist, Dr Canavero told Helen Thompson exactly how he planned to go about the procedure. The process would begin by both bodies being cooled sufficiently enough to prevent the patient's death by oxygen deprivation, after which the patient's head would be removed and hooked up to life support systems while the donor head is removed from its body.
"The recipient's head is then moved onto the donor body and the two ends of the spinal cord are fused together," Thomson continued.
"To achieve this, Canavero intends to flush the area with a chemical called polyethylene glycol, and follow up with several hours of injections of the same stuff. Just like hot water makes dry spaghetti stick together, polyethylene glycol encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh."
Dr Canavero is confident that not only will the patient fully recover within one year of the surgery, but that he'll even have the exact same voice as before.
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