A UK team is to be allowed to carry out the world’s first full face transplant “within months”.

A team led by Peter Butler at the Royal Free Hospital, London, has been given the go-ahead to carry out the operation by an NHS ethics committee. No patient has been selected for the procedure, although the team have been approached by around 30 patients.

Mr Butler said he was “delighted” by the news and hoped the operation could help patients “feel normal”. But he insisted it was not a race.

He said: “I feel delighted that we have got the go-ahead. It’s been a long journey but this is just the beginning, really.

“The most important part of the process starts now, which is selection of the patients.”

<B>“Being normal” </B>

Mr Butler has been approached by about 30 patients, and is now looking to draw up a shortlist of candidates who meet the selection criteria for the operation. His team will choose four patients from the UK or Ireland for the procedure.

He said: “These patients will have already undergone reconstructive surgery - perhaps they will have had 50 to 70 reconstructive operations. They have reached the end of the reconstructive ladder and there’s nothing more it can offer them.

“Then they have the problem of integration into society, of being able to walk down the street in society without anybody staring at them. That’s all these people want - to be normal.”

The ethics committee at the London hospital looked at whether the surgery and subsequent immune suppression would be safe, and whether any patient would be able to cope with the psychological impact.

Mr Butler has been researching face transplants for several years, looking at issues such as tissue rejection, psychological issues and concern surrounding identity. The operation will involve removing skin, underlying fat and eight different blood vessels, four arteries and four veins from a donor patient.

The face will then be reconnected to the recipient in a procedure which will last several hours. After the operation, the patient will have to take immunosuppressant drugs to stop their body from rejecting the new tissue.

Last November, Isabelle Dinoire, from France, became the first person to receive a partial face transplant. She received a section of a nose, lips and chin after being mauled by the family dog. Her progress since the operation has been deemed good.`