An Irish teenager who was born without a lower jaw will is undergoing surgery in New York hospital.
Alan Doherty underwent the first of at least two operations yesterday at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre to give him a mandible and chin.
Alan (17) is one of two people known to have the condition, called otofacial syndrome, the hospital said. He cannot breathe without assistance and cannot eat or speak.
He gets nutrition through a tube inserted into his stomach and communicates through typing out messages on a keyboard that he wears attached to a computer that speaks for him.
Doctors at the hospital planned to use a piece of Doherty's hip bone as a replacement for his lower jaw. Yesterday, they moved the bone to his back, where it will be nourished and will gather nerves, the hospital said.
Then in an operation planned for later this year the bone will be moved to his face.
The idea for the operations came about when Alan, from Letterkenny, Donegal, visited the United States last year for an athletics event put on by the Physically Challenged Irish and American Youth Team.
Team director Bill Broderick said that he had asked Alan if he wanted anything while he was in the United States and that the teenager had asked him for a face.
Mr Broderick said his charity organisation was still raising the money to pay for the surgery, which costs more than $100,000.
AP