Sunday August 24, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- People with the face disfigured may smile again.   Studies in the Lancet show patients who received face transplants did not show much of side effects physiologically and psychologically.

Three high profile cases of face transplantation have been reported. They have been monitored by doctors to see how the surgery would affect their lives.

Two out of the three cases experienced recurrent episodes of tissue in the first year.   But psychologically all patients accepted their new faces and enjoyed some facial functions.

The first case is a French woman named Isabelle Dinoire who underwent her transplant in November 2005.   Her face was severely disfigured in an attack by her dog. Doctors reported that she experienced two episodes of rejection, but recovered slowly and steadily.

The second case involves a Chinese man whose face was destroyed by a bear. The transplant was carried out in 2006.    After the operation, he had some complications with tissue rejection, but he was doing well two years later, Reuters reported.

The third case was a 29-year-old man whose face was deformed by von Recklinghausen disease. A team of French doctors transplanted a new nose, mouth and chin on his face in 2007. Thirteen months later he began having more function in his face and did not experienced tissue rejection, his doctors were cited as saying.

"Our case confirms that face transplantation is surgically feasible and effective for the correction of specific disfigurement," Dr. Laurent Lantieri and colleagues at the Henri-Mondor hospital outside Paris were quoted as writing.