French doctors have carried out a successful full-face transplant – eyelids, tear ducts and all- on a 35-year-old man. The Creteil Henri-Mondor hospital in the Paris suburbs where the operation took place today confirmed that Doctors carried out the 12-hour operation on a patient – identified only as "Jerome" – afflicted with a face-disfiguring genetic disorder. The head surgeon, Laurent Lantieri, described the surgery as a world first because it included a difficult and unprecedented transplant of tear ducts and eyelids. Lantieri said his patient was doing well. A similar procedure carried out in Spain earlier this year replaced most of the face, but not the tear ducts.