A Chinese hospital run by the military said Friday it had performed what would be the world's second face transplant, and the first on a male patient.
Xijing Hospital in the north-western city of Xi'an said in a statement on its website that it had performed the complex surgery after two years of preparation.
"The surgery really did happen," a nurse at the hospital's plastic surgery institute told AFP. She said doctors who were involved in the surgery could not immediately be made available for comment.
French woman Isabelle Dinoire last year became the first person in the world to receive a face transplant.
"This surgery was even more complex and meticulous than the one performed by the French," the statement said. A team led by Doctor Guo Shuzhong, the head of the plastic surgery institute, began the operation Thursday afternoon and completed it successfully 14 hours later on Friday morning, the statement said.
The patient was identified as Li Guoxing, a hunter and a native of the Lisu ethnic minority in the south-western province of Yunnan, who was attacked by a bear two years ago and had his face badly mangled.
State-run Xinhua news agency reported the transplant covered two thirds of his face. A photo of Li after the surgery, displayed on the hospital's website, showed how he had received new tissue to the middle part of his face, below the eyes and above the mouth.
The facial tissue had been donated by a brain-dead man, Xinhua said, citing Han Yan, one of the doctors involved in the surgery. Li would not only have to receive follow-up medical treatment to ensure the new facial tissue was not rejected, but would also likely encounter some psychological distress, Xinhua reported.