A hospital in Barcelona has performed a pioneering facial transplant in which the donor, in a world first, offered her face for donation before undergoing an assisted dying procedure.

The complex surgery involved transplanting composite tissue from the central part of the face and required the participation of around 100 professionals, including psychiatrists and immunologists, the prestigious Vall d’Hebron hospital said in a statement.

The hospital’s transplant coordinator, Elisabeth Navas, said the donor had shown ‘a level of maturity that leaves one speechless’.

‘Someone who has decided to end their life dedicates one of their last wishes to a stranger and gives them a second chance of this magnitude,’ Navas said.

The recipient – identified only by her first name, Carme – had suffered facial tissue necrosis from a bacterial infection caused by an insect bite, affecting her ability to speak, eat and see.

‘When I’m looking in the mirror at home, I’m thinking that I’m starting to look more like myself,’ Carme told a press conference on Monday, adding her recovery was going very well. 

For such cases requiring facial transplants, the donor and recipient must share the same sex, blood group and have a similar head size.

With a population of 49.4 million, Spain has been a global leader in organ transplants for more than three decades. 

Carme, the first person in the world to receive a face transplant from a euthanised donor, poses at Hospital Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, Spain, 02 February 2026

The complex surgery involved transplanting composite tissue from the central part of the face and required the participation of around 100 professionals

Carme, recipient of the world’s first face transplant from a donor who had requested assisted dying, talks to doctors at Hospital Vall d’Hebron, in Barcelona, Spain, February 2, 2026

In 2021, it became the fourth European Union country to legalise euthanasia.

Half of the six facial transplants ever done in Spain have been performed by Vall d’Hebron staff. 

The Catalan hospital also performed the world’s first full-face transplant in 2010.

Some 6,300 organ transplants were performed in Spain last year, according to Health Ministry data, with kidney transplants the most common.