First Human Tongue Transplant

JThaddeus writes "The New Scientist reports that "The world's first human tongue transplant has been successfully carried out by doctors in Austria." The 14-hour surgery replaced the 42-year old owner's original tongue which had to be removed because of a malignant tumour in his mouth. (Imagine the interviews: "I wanna thank all the doctorth and nurtheth who performed thith thuccethful thurgery.")"

You've said a mouthful, michael

[dacarr]

First successful tongue transplant? I'm curious then, does food taste different because it was somebody else's tongue? Oh yeah, FP! =)

More than a mouthful

[chloroquine]

I think that they said that the guy would have motion and be able to feel things but that he wouldn't be able to taste things.

Apparently without a tongue, he would have had to be tube fed for the rest of his life.

First?!?!

[Flwyd]

I've been transplanting my tongue into other people's mouths for years.

Re:First?!?!

[dotgod]

Yes son it's me...I didn't know you read slashdot.

!sdrawkcaB

[stefanlasiewski]

!tiodi uoy sdrawkcab eugnot eht dehcatta uoY

Re:!sdrawkcaB

[satanami69]

huh

Re:!sdrawkcaB

[ceejayoz]

Read it backwards...

Re:!sdrawkcaB

[boto]

!tiodi uoy sdrawkcab eugnot eht dehcatta uoY

What is an "idoit"?

Re:!sdrawkcaB

[Anonymous Coward]

The author

Re:!sdrawkcaB

[mrmeval]

Hello kind person stefanlasiewski,

Please give us an example showing the results of when they install the tongue upside down and backwards. :-P

Re:!sdrawkcaB

[stefanlasiewski]

Believe me, I thought about it. Backwards was the best I could do. Suppose I could research some arcane unicode characters...

It's less weird than what they used to do

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

A good friend had cancer in his tongue a few years back. Rather than transplant in a donor, they just pulled up some of his pectoral and rebuilt it into a tongue for him. He could eat and drink, but lacked all sense of taste (as does the transplant patient, btw)
He had a helluva time with Tic Tacs, since he also couldn't feel tiny things.

Do me a favor, don't mod this posting. If you must, at least do a "+1 - Funny" as he would have wanted it that way.

--

Err, really not funny?

[NanoGator]

"(Imagine the interviews: "I wanna thank all the doctorth and nurtheth who performed thith thuccethful thurgery.)"

Anybody else read this and think that the story submitter picked a bad time to make a joke? The dude had cancer, it's not like he lost his tongue in a way that'd earn him a Darwin Award Honorable Mention. Making fun of him for that was tasteless, no pun intended.

Re:Err, really not funny?

[L. VeGas]

I completey agree. It is absolutely inappropriate to make light of a..hee hee.. excuse me... a Austrian...[cough] ha ha... an Austrian TOUNGE TRANSPLANT! ha ha ha, oh god.. ha ha ha

sorry, [cough] I'm so em- bare -assed. Woo hoo, ha ha ha

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[MerlynEmrys67]

Anybody else read this and think that the story submitter picked a bad time to make a joke
Well I looked at it and assumed that the guy got tounge cancer the normal way... abuse of tobacco products. Sorry I have a hard time feeling sorry for self inflicted wounds.

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[NanoGator]

"Well I looked at it and assumed that the guy got tounge cancer the normal way... abuse of tobacco products. Sorry I have a hard time feeling sorry for self inflicted wounds."

I might agree with you if not for the addictiveness of tobacco products.

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[MerlynEmrys67]

I might agree with you if not for the addictiveness of tobacco products.
And who held the gun to this persons head and said start sucking away. Tobacco addiction has a long well known history. If our society was intelligent no one under 60 would be smoking today. Of course I had a high school teacher that said you can never under estimate the intelligence of the average american Kumquat. I think he is right, I get more amazed by the hour

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[NanoGator]

That's a bit of a narrow perception, don'tcha think? Not trying to be insulting or inflammatory here, but you are oversimplifying a rather complex situation.

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[MerlynEmrys67]

What is complex. Smoking is bad for you, it has been known for over 40 years that smoking is bad for you... If you care about your health (Ok, I guess there are suicidal people in the world) you shouldn't smoke.

How is saying any of that being narrow minded. Is it narrow minded to tell our children not to play in traffic because they could be hit by cars (no matter how fun it really is)... People that accept other peoples stupidity, and then try to rationalize it scare me to no end.

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[NanoGator]

"If you care about your health (Ok, I guess there are suicidal people in the world) you shouldn't smoke."

Yet, people still do it. Why? Think about it.

"How is saying any of that being narrow minded."

Because there are many factors at play. If you understood more about what all was involved in people smoking despite the risks to their health, it would be unlikely that you would have the opinion you do now.

" Is it narrow minded to tell our children not to play in traffic because they could be hit by

Re:cry me a river

[NanoGator]

Again, you're not working with all the data here. You are a small step closer, though.

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[Guppy06]

"If you care about your health (Ok, I guess there are suicidal people in the world) you shouldn't smoke."

"Yet, people still do it. Why? Think about it."

Are you trying to imply the recipient was suicidal? If he was, then that's a nauseating waste of perfectly good organs that could have gone to someone who wasn't in such a rush to hurry along their demise. After all, it's not like he's going to be leaving any usable organs behind.

"If you understood more about what all was involved in people smoking

Re:Err, really not funny? - or not

[NanoGator]

"Please try to enlighten us. I personally agree with the parent poster and, short of illteracy (unable to read the Surgeon General's warnings that have been on the damned things since before most of us were even born), fail to see why these people deserve pity. "

I'll take a stab at explaining my view. I don't expect to change your opinions, but if you'll take a moment to read and understand my view then it'll be greatly appreciated, even if we can't see eye to eye on it. Cool?

People are aware of the he

Re:

[account_deleted]

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Re:But it probably should earn him a Darwin Award

[Anonvmous Coward]

"The only real difference between those who get the Darwin Awards and tobacco users is that the Darwin Award recipients did not see news reports, scientific studies, and warning labels that, for years, told them that what they were about to do would probably kill them."

The operative word here is 'probably'. Only it's not 'probably', it's 'may'. Despite the warnings and the Truth ads, there are millions (billions?) of smokers of any age living quite happily.

It really is a flip of the coin whether or not

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:But it probably should earn him a Darwin Award

[NanoGator]

Why is this 2-day old thread still getting attention? Did somebody link to it from another website or something?

Re:

[account_deleted]

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Re:

[account_deleted]

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Oh no, this sucks

[L. VeGas]

I just got the first "Increase your tounge by 6 inches!" spam in by mailbox.

Re:Oh no, this sucks

[vidnet]

Ach! That joke was on the tip of my tongue!

We'll see

[BWJones]

So, aside from the fact (presuming this was a xenotransplant) that this guy is going to have to take immunosuppresants for the rest of his life which have significant side effects like kidney damage, it will be interesting to see what happens. The tongue is actually a pretty impressive bit of tissue comprised of several layers of muscle, and the innervation of it from the hypoglossal CN is not insignificant.

Re:We'll see

[orkysoft]

(presuming this was a xenotransplant)

Does the submission say anything other than "human tongue transplant"?

Re:We'll see

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Uh, it wasn't a xenotransplant (a transplant from another species), it was just a transplant from a donor. And yes, he will have to take immunosuppressants.

Thath Tho Funny

[fm6]

Tongue Cancer [utoronto.ca] is just a barrel of laughs!

Takes One to Know One

[X-wes]

I would like to clarify this for you slightly. The moral of that post was to show how unfunny tongue cancer really is. Considering the wisecrack in the story, this bring-us-down-to-reality post shows a lot of insight on the part of the poster.

I hope you, as well as JThaddeus, take some time to give this a bit of reflection.

great, but not really a step forward...

[ravenousbugblatter]

Man, think about where that tongue might have been ;~)

If this works it'll be great. But unfortunately, it will be like most transplants - temporary. Something like ~75%, or more, of transplants are rejected after 5-7 years, even when the person is taking immunosuppresive drugs. Fact of the matter is, we understand why rejection occurs, but we don't yet have the ability to prevent it. Until that happens, and xenotransplantation will play a big role in it, transplants will continue to be risky and long-term failures. But hey, sometimes that is better than the alternative...

Changes in Taste

[Alethes]

Does this change the way the transplant patient tastes certain foods? Will he like foods he didn't like before or dislike foods he used to like? Perhaps his favorite food will be whatever the person that had the tongue before liked? Just wondering.

Crazy big words

[momerath2003]

The average size of the words in quotes is like 7. Which is crazy.

Acually, it's 5.1882353, but that's including every single word (articles, etc.)

These scientists and their big words. They think they know so much.

Dear submitters to slashdot,

[onomatomania]

Dear submitters, do you think we could possibly get story writeups without the bad 12-yearold humor? You know, something befitting a site visited by tens of thousands every day, and not the "hey bevis, huh, his tongue has cancer" drivel? Mmm'kay, thanks. (and editors, you know you can actually... EDIT those submissions, too.)

LOL - CBG

[dtabraha]

For anybody who didn't get it... Comic Book Guy [worldwide-web.com] / The Aquaman Quote [worldwide-web.com]

Re:Dear submitters to slashdot,

[onomatomania]

I don't know what your point is, but I damn sure wouldn't include my sig in a story writeup.

And in case you're dense, that's from the simpsons, and is dumping on comic book idiots, not my personal feelings on any aquaman-related issue.

KISS

[Daedalus-Ubergeek]

I call dibs on Gene Simmons' tongue.

Tongue-fucking girls just got easier!

Film rights

[kinnell]

This sounds like the start of a great plot for a pornographic sci-fi horror film.

Donor

[Ed Almos]

Given the ability of my ex-wife to nag for hours without a break I hope to God that she was the donor.

Ed Almos

First human tongue transplant

[metamatic]

Apparently it was SCO CEO Darl McBride's tongue. They transplanted it from Bill Gates' ass.