A 15-hour complex operation involving 29 specialists continued, with doctors removing a British tongue, two lashes and most of its teeth in January.
Joanna Smith, of Clapham City, Bedfordshire County, went to the doctor last October to complain of an ulcer in her mouth. The doctor described her as a cure for her pain, but he was soon asked to do a biopsy because of the rapid inflation of the inflammation in her mouth.
Tests revealed that the 58-year-old was suffering from tongue cancer.
The doctors decided to have an immediate operation for her, because she would have lived between six and eight months only if the operation did not take place. During the complex and rapid operation, the surgeons asked for a formal permit from her family for a second operation to repair her tongue, after the tissue, veins and muscle doctors had taken from her right leg were damaged. Following the consent of Smith's daughter, the doctors continued to restore the tongue, in the last five hours of the operation, using the skin and veins of her right hand.
Smith died of cancer as a result of the successful operation, but noticed that her voice had changed, and she had lost taste.