( CNN ) -- Dr. Maria Siemionow , head of plastic surgery at the famed Cleveland Clinic , led a surgical team that recently performed the first face transplant in the United States . Cleveland Clinic doctors spent 22 hours reconstructing a patient 's face . Siemionow and CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta talked with CNN 's Larry King about the reconstructive procedure and the prognosis for the patient . The following is an edited transcript of the interview . Larry King : Dr. Siemionow , what caused the patient to need a new face ? Dr. Maria Siemionow : The patient has a severe deformity of the face after trauma and was missing a nose and missing cheekbones and a large part of the skin and the front of the face , upper lip , lower eyelids . There was a large part of the skin and bone components which were missing , and practically the patient was missing the front of the face . Watch a discussion of the transplant procedure » . King : Did you have to find the perfect donor ? Siemionow : No . That 's not what were looking for . We were looking for a possibility of reconstructing this patient 's face in a way that it would replace the missing components and that we would be able , also , to give back this patient 's function , which is probably the most important idea behind this procedure . Interactive : Learn more about the procedure » . King : So what was the transplant ? Siemionow : Well , the transplant was the transfer of the transplanted face , which included ( a ) large amount -- about 80 percent of the entire face of the patient . It included skin components , bone components , the entire nose , cheekbones , a palette and upper lip and also included the eyelids -- the lower eyelids . Watch Siemionow discuss the procedure » . King : From another doctor 's standpoint , Dr. Gupta -- and I know that you 're not a plastic surgeon , but a brain surgeon -- what was the most amazing thing about this to you ? Sanjay Gupta : The face is one of the most complicated areas of the body . I mean , it 's responsible for your facial expression , your ability to eat , your ability to breathe , your ability to speak , obviously . Being able to take all those really , really functional areas that are made up of so many nerves , so many blood vessels -- not to mention the cosmetic aspects of it -- and making it all come together and work in some sort of functional form is pretty remarkable . King : Doctor , has the patient seen her new face ? Siemionow : No , the patient has not seen her face , but she touched her face , and she was very happy . She , for the first time a few days ago , just went with her fingers over her face . She felt that she has a nose . She was feeling her lip , and she was very happy . King : How long did it take ( to do the surgery ) ? Siemionow : It took 22 hours -- 22 hours of many team members of different subspecialties working together , from one afternoon one day into the late afternoon the second day . Gupta : It strikes me that you found the perfect recipient , someone who 's a good candidate for this operation . Four years , though , it took , Dr. Siemionow . Is that how rare this type of procedure will be ? Siemionow : Yes . Well , you know , we discussed it very extensively , that you want to be sure that in our approach we were looking only at potential candidates who would be a patient who had already exhausted all conventional means of reconstruction . I think it 's very important because you would like to be sure that the patient is not undergoing such a serious procedure without being helped in conventional means before . However , it is very difficult to reconstruct certain parts of the face , including , for example , lips or including eyelids . Even reconstruction of the entire nose is difficult . There are plastic surgeons who are doing wonderful reconstructive procedures , but they are also done in several attempts . This takes time and patients suffering and the results not always are presentable .
Doctor who performed first U.S. face transplant says patient recently felt new nose , lip . Patient had 80 percent of her face reconstructed in 22-hour procedure . It took medical team four years before finding perfect candidate for procedure .