title: The Cleveland Clinic FACES Score: a preliminary assessment tool for identifying the optimal face transplant candidate.
abstract: In lieu of limited resources, our multidisciplinary face transplant team requires a preliminary, supplemental objective grading scheme for identifying the optimal face transplant candidate. Therefore, our objective was to develop an effective method for evaluating "facial deficit," which could also be used in the future for the allocation of limited facial organs, analogous to liver transplantation.Each candidate is screened using our institutional review board-approved protocol's current inclusion/exclusion criteria. Five categories were conceptualized to be of significance in evaluating patients in pursuit of facial allotransplantation as per our recent experience, as determined by the face transplant team. All patients with unfavorable characteristics such as evidence of poor medical compliance, an unsatisfactory psychosocial evaluation by our team's transplant psychiatrist, and/or end-stage organ disease suggestive of significant comorbidity were excluded.This study resulted in a reproducible scoring system allowing our team the unprecedented ability to stratify facial deficit in a standardized fashion. The FACES scores ranged from 10 (minimum) to 60 (maximum). Besides being used as a supplemental prescreening and/or postscreening tool, the FACES score has also provided an unprecedented framework for establishing a face transplant candidate registry within our institution, with the optimal recipients receiving the highest of scores.This FACES score objectively stratifies face transplant candidates for their facial deficit during multiple steps throughout the screening process and affords our institution the means of creating a registry. If substantiated, this supplemental score may ultimately predict successful outcomes, determine optimal utility, and provide insight toward prognosis with respect to facial composite tissue allotransplantation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic Surgery, The Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Ave, Desk A-60, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA. gordonc@ccf.org
authors.forename: Chad R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Siemionow
authors.forename: Kathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Coffman
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Alam
authors.forename: Bijan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Eghtesad
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Zins
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fung
authors.forename: Landon
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pryor
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Papay
mesh_terms: D054445:Facial Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D009820:Ohio; D018579:Patient Selection; D012720:Severity of Illness Index