The patient received her face from a donor for the first time after euthanasia

In a hospital in the Spanish city of Barcelona, ​​for the first time in the world, a woman was transplanted with the face of a donor who decided to undergo an assisted dying procedure. This was reported by Reuters.

The operation took place in the fall of 2025 at the Val d'Hebron hospital, but it became known only after the conference, which took place on Monday, February 2. The transplantation of skin, muscles, blood vessels and nerves was carried out by about a hundred specialists, including psychiatrists and immunologists, the clinic said.

The recipient was a woman named Karme - her last name has not been disclosed. She suffered from facial tissue necrosis due to a bacterial infection that developed after an insect bite in the Canary Islands. The disease impaired the woman’s ability to speak, eat and see, the material notes.

“When I look in the mirror at home, I think I look like myself,” Karme said at a news conference, adding that she is recovering well from surgery. It is expected that as a result, a woman’s face will be able not only to perform vital functions, but also to express emotions through facial expressions.

No donor information is provided. It is only known that she agreed to donate her face and some organs before deciding on the assisted dying procedure. In this case, the doctor only provides, but does not administer, the drug that leads to the death of the patient.

Due to the fact that the date of the donor's death was known in advance, doctors were able to prepare for the operation in advance, which made it much easier. As noted by Reuters, for a face transplant it is necessary that two people have the same gender, blood type and head size.

The Val d'Hebron Hospital is one of the world leaders in the field of organ transplantation. About half of the 6,300 such operations performed in Spain in 2025 were performed by doctors at this particular clinic. It was also they who first performed the world's first full face transplant in 2010.

Assisted dying was legalized in 2021. In 2025, 426 people used the procedure, Reuters noted.