Head transplant patient volunteered for risky procedure for 'better life' and to 'evolve technology'

• Video credit: ITV/Good Morning Britain

A terminally ill man who has volunteered for the first human head transplant said that he is attempting the risky surgery to try to improve his life and help evolve the ground-breaking procedure.

Valery Spiridonov, who suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman's muscle wasting disease, has volunteered for the procedure to be carried out in China by neurosurgeons Dr Sergio Canavero.

The £10 million procedure, which will take 150 medical staff 36 hours to complete, has never been attempted on a human and attempts on animals have had limited success.

But Mr Spiridonov, 31, told Good Morning Britain it was worth the risk.

He said: "I thought that if this technology could improve and could be done safe enough to make these transplants on humans, it will make sense and of course we should evolve this procedure and make it happen.

"My current condition is pretty heavy. I cannot take care of myself, I cannot walk, I need constant assistance. My motivation is about improving my life conditions and to get to the stage where I will be able to take care of myself and be independent of other people."

But he said his girlfriend does not think he needs to change and that he does not need the surgery. He added: "She accepts me as I am."

Dr Hilary Jones said that there were lots of risks to the surgery including the loss of the use of his arms and the rejection of his head by the donor body.

He added: "He'd need a respirator because the nerves that make his heart beat and his lung breathe would not be connected anymore and he could well end up with no motor function in his body, paralysis."

But Dr Canavero says the procedure is pioneering and it has been researched and planned for over 30 years.

He said that all the surgeons involved in the procedure believe that there is a 90% chance of survival after the operation.

• Video credit: ITV/Good Morning Britain

The operation will be tested on cadavers and then on brain dead organ donors before it is carried out on Mr Spiridonov.

He said that the list of volunteers for the surgery is "so long I cannot begin to give you all the names" including several patients from England.

Steps of the first human head transplant procedure:

• The head will be frozen to temperatures below -15 degrees to stop brain cells from dying and the neck will be cut. Tubes connecting key arteries and veins will be fitted.

• The next step, and the biggest challenge, will be cutting the spinal cord,. The surgeon will use a fine blade made from diamond to minimise damage.

• Then the head from the donor body will be removed and the spinal cords will be fused together with a form of glue

• In a race against time, remaining muscles, veins and organs like the oesophagus will be fused together.

• Once the skin is stitched together by a plastic surgeon, the patient will be kept in an induced coma for three to four weeks to allow everything to heal and drugs will be administered to stop the body rejecting the head.

Dr Canavero believes that if successful, Mr Spiridonov would be able to speak in his own voice after waking and that walking could be possible within a year.

But experts claim that success is unlikely especially as tests on animals have little success.

In 1970 Dr Robert White 'successfully' transplanted a head on a monkey but the spinal cord was not attached to its body and it died eight days later.

Chinese doctor Xiao-Ping Ren, who is to carry out the procedure on Mr Spiridonov with Dr Canavero, conducted head transplants on more than 1,000 mice - but none lived long afterwards.