A Californian woman was left with bones growing within her eyes after a botched facelift which included stem cell injections.
The woman paid $20,000 for the procedure at a Beverly Hills clinic, but months later her face was still in pain and her right eye had started to click, according to a report in Scientific American.
She visited a separate surgeon in 2009 and explained she could not open her right eye without considerable pain and that every time she forced it open, she heard a strange click - a sharp sound, like a tiny castanet snapping shut.
After a six hour surgery the new surgeon Wu had dug out small chunks of bone from the woman's eyelid and tissue surrounding her eye, which was scratched but largely intact.
The clicks she heard were the bone fragments grinding against one another, according to the Scientific American report.
It is believed the bone formation could have occurred when the woman's own stem cells, mesenchymal cells which can develop into any body tissue, reacted with a common dermal filler which contains calcium.
The original procedure that the 65-year-old underwent is new and unregulated in the US, whereby surgeons remove patient's own stem cells and inject them elsewhere in their body.
Such face-lifts supposedly rejuvenate the skin because stem cells turn into brand-new tissue and release chemicals that help heal aging cells and stimulate nearby cells to proliferate.
- nzherald.co.nz
