Jose Mestre After Surgery

Here I have good update about Jose Mestre. As I mentioned in my old post about "Jose Mestre - the man without face”, who had 12-pound tumor that covered his most of face
But Now Jose Mestre is adjusting with his new look after surgery. The life-threatening 12-pound tumor was completely removed by Dr. McKay McKinnon that covered most of Jose Mestre's face. 55 year old Portuguese, is now 5 kilos lighter and looking handsome with human face.


This is after doctors in Saint Joseph Hospital, Chicago performed radical surgery to remove the extra weight growing on his face. It took the doctors three months to successfully do the whole procedure.

Jose Mestre Before Surgery

Jose Mestre After Surgery

The tumor which started growing when Mestre was only 14 years old was already affecting his sight, his breathing and much of his sleeping and eating activities that he could have died had it not been for the operation. The growth on Mestre’s face was so huge that he was more known as “the man without face.”



Jose Mestre after surgery and spending three months in Chicago and undergoing four facial surgeries, finally he has a chance to lead sort of a normal life because before he felt that, even though he never chose to, but he was the center of attraction wherever he went.

His sister Edith Abreu has cared for him over the years and been with him throughout the surgeries. Mestre says without her, he would not be alive.

Jose Mestre : The Man With No Face

A victim of horrific facial disfigurement - known as "the man with no face" - has been given new hope by the advancement of medical science.

Jose Mestre, from Lisbon, Portugal, has been losing his face to a huge growth for the past 35 years, distorting it out of all recognition - and it's still growing. Jose has one of the most extreme facial tumours ever seen in medical history. The tumor on 51-year-old Jose's face is a collection of blood vessels that have expanded, producing a raised red area on the skin.

Jose Mestre was born with a strawberry-coloured birthmark on his upper lip. At puberty it began growing, eventually smothering his lips, nose and one of his eyes. Now it is 33cm long and weighs 3kg. But Jose's religious faith - as a Jehovah's Witness he refuses to accept a blood transfusion - has prevented him from having surgery to remove the growth. Unemployed Jose is blind in one eye as a result of the giant weeping growth that has consumed his features.



Jose's rare condition was the subject of a Discovery Channel TV documentary 'The Man With No Face', part of the 'My Shocking Story' series. It reveals how top medical experts in London have now held out hope of helping Jose, a well-known figure around the streets of Lisbon. A leading British surgeon has offered to treat Jose using ultrasound waves to coagulate the blood before the operation. This should remove the risk of heavy bleeding - satisfying his religious beliefs about blood transfusions in the process. Dr. Iain Hutchison, of St Bartholomew's in London, is confident an operation with a harmonic scalpel could make him look a lot more normal.

Discovery Channel said: "Surrounded by a loving family, it seems incredible that he has not been treated and his face was allowed to grow so big. However, through years of medical misinformation, some misdiagnosis, lack of finances, and reluctance to undergo treatment due to religious beliefs, the growth has continued to obliterate his face." My Shocking Story follows Jose on a journey through Europe to seek medical advice for one last chance to stop his face from suffocating him.

In this journey of a lifetime he travels by train, via Paris to Britain to meet the top experts in London. He goes through a series of tests, consultations, and meets other patients with a similar affliction. In London he also spends time with his sister Guida and the rest of his family, enjoys being a tourist in London, while making the biggest decision of his life.

Jose's dream is to live a long and normal life. Following the showing of the Discovery documentary he continues to adhere to his 'no blood transfusion' religious principles. But he has agreed to go back to the London hospital, when doctors hope to carry out specialist surgery to begin removing parts of his tumor, without the need for blood transfusions.