Doctors say they have done the world's first partial skull and scalp transplant to help a man with a large head wound from cancer treatment. (Photo: Adam Bennett / KHOU 11 News) 
 
 HOUSTON - Houston has made medical history. Doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital and MD Anderson performed the first ever skull and scalp transplant. The man from Austin needed it because of an open wound in his head caused by cancer treatments. 
 
 Even surrounded by doctors, nurses, and cameras, the fact that he just made history still didn't quite feel real for James Boysen. 
 
 "It will sink in," said Boysen, the transplant patient. "It hasn't sunk in yet." 
 
 Doctors say Boysen's skull and scalp transplant on May 22 is not only the world's first, but it's also the first time a composite tissue transplant has been done at the same time as a solid organ transplant. Boysen received a new kidney and pancreas during the same operation. 
 
 "This now opens the possibility to receive transplants like hands, faces and abdominal walls in Houston," said Dr. Jesse Selber of MD Anderson, one of the doctors who operated on Boysen. "And that's new. And not only is that new in Houston, that's new in Texas and the southern states." 
 
 Doctors from MD Anderson and Houston Methodist worked together because both operations had to be done at the same time. 
 
 "I couldn't get the transplant surgery I needed for the organs without fixing my scalp," said Boysen. "I couldn't fix my scalp because of the failure of the organs. I was between a rock and a hard place." 
 
 After a year of planning the joint operation, Boysen got the call on May 21 that doctors had found matching organs from the same donor. 
 
 "He said 'Kay I've got the call,'" recalled Kay Mouser, Boysen's long-time girlfriend. "It wasn't freaking out or anything, and I'm like 'Oh my god, I have to pack.'" 
 
 The next day, Boysen underwent 15 hours of surgery that took more than 50 people and was ultimately successful. Dr. Selber says Boysen has "sailed through recovery". 
 
 "He's upbeat he's positive he's cracking jokes," said Mouser. 
 
 "I feel really good," said Boysen on Thursday morning during a press conference, before later joking, "I'll have to go determine what kind of hair gel to use now." 
 
 Now as the 55-year-old software developer from Austin begins his recovery, he's looking forward to living life outside hospital walls. 
 
 "Once I get totally discharged and I'd love to go swimming," said Boysen. "I haven't been able to go swimming in awhile." 
 
 Boysen will stay in Houston the next three weeks for follow-up care and hopes to be back at work in Austin in a couple of months. 
 
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 Texas doctors say they have done the world's first partial skull and scalp transplant to help a man with a large head wound from cancer treatment. 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, Kay Mouser and boyfriend Jim Boysen talk about transitioning into temporary housing after leaving Houston Methodist Hospital. Texas doctors say they have... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, James Boysen is interviewed in his hospital bed at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston. Texas doctors say he received the world's first skull and scalp... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, James Boysen is interviewed in his hospital bed at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston. Texas doctors say he received the world's first skull and scalp... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, James Boysen reads messages in his hospital bed at Houston Methodist Hospital, in Houston. Boysen received the world's first skull and scalp transplant... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, James Boysen is interviewed in his hospital bed at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston. Texas doctors say he received the world's first skull and scalp... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, transplant patient Jim Boysen sits in his hospital bed at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston. Texas doctors say they have done the world's first partial... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, physical therapist Regi Mathew works with transplant patient Jim Boysen at Houston Methodist Hospital, in Houston. Texas doctors say they have done the... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, physical therapist assistant Gini Tagle, left, and physical therapist Regi Mathew, right, complete their daily walk with transplant patient Jim Boysen at... (Associated Press) 
 
 MD Anderson Cancer Center and Houston Methodist Hospital doctors announced Thursday that they did the operation on May 22 at Houston Methodist. 
 
 The recipient — Jim Boysen, a 55-year-old software developer from Austin, Texas — expects to leave the hospital Thursday with a new kidney and pancreas along with the scalp and skull grafts. He said he was stunned at how well doctors matched him to a donor with similar skin and coloring. 
 
 "It's kind of shocking, really, how good they got it. I will have way more hair than when I was 21," Boysen joked in an interview with The Associated Press. 
 
 Last year, doctors in the Netherlands said they replaced most of a woman's skull with a 3-D printed plastic one. The Texas operation is thought to be the first skull-scalp transplant from a human donor, as opposed to an artificial implant or a simple bone graft. 
 
 Boysen had a kidney-pancreas transplant in 1992 to treat diabetes he has had since age 5 and has been on drugs to prevent organ rejection. The immune suppression drugs raise the risk of cancer, and he developed a rare type — leiomyosarcoma (lee-oh-my-oh-sar-KOHM-ah). 
 
 It can affect many types of smooth muscles but in his case, it was the ones under the scalp that make your hair stand on end when something gives you the creeps. 
 
 Radiation therapy for the cancer destroyed part of his head, immune suppression drugs kept his body from repairing the damage, and his transplanted organs were starting to fail — "a perfect storm that made the wound not heal," Boysen said. 
 
 Yet doctors could not perform a new kidney-pancreas transplant as long as he had an open wound. That's when Dr. Jesse Selber, a reconstructive plastic surgeon at MD Anderson, thought of giving him a new partial skull and scalp at the same time as new organs as a solution to all of his problems. 
 
 Houston Methodist, which has transplant expertise, partnered on the venture. It took 18 months for the organ procurement organization, LifeGift, to find the right donor, who provided all organs for Boysen and was not identified. 
 
 Boysen "had a wound that was basically all the way through his skull to his brain," Selber said. 
 
 In a 15-hour operation by about a dozen doctors and 40 other health workers, Boysen was given a cap-shaped, 10-by-10-inch skull graft, and a 15-inch-wide scalp graft starting above his forehead, extending across the top of his head and over its crown. It ends an inch above one ear and two inches above the other. 
 
 Any surgery around the brain is difficult, and this one required very delicate work to remove and replace a large part of the skull and re-establish a blood supply to keep the transplant viable. 
 
 "We had to connect small blood vessels about one-sixteenth of an inch thick. It's done under an operating microscope with little stitches about half the thickness of a human hair, using tools like a jeweler would use to make a fine Swiss watch," said Dr. Michael Klebuc, who led the Houston Methodist plastic surgery team. 
 
 The pancreas and kidney were transplanted after the head surgery was done. 
 
 Boysen said he already has sensation in the new scalp. 
 
 "That kind of shocked the doctor. He was doing a test yesterday and I said, 'Ouch I feel that.' He kind of jumped back," Boysen said. The new scalp also was sweating in the hot room — another surprise so soon after the operation, he said. 
 
 Boysen was to be discharged from the hospital on Thursday and will remain in Houston for two to three weeks for follow-up. 
 
 "I'm glad the donor family had the generosity and insight to approve us doing this ... to get through their grief and approve the donation of this tissue besides the organs," said Dr. A. Osama Gaber, director of transplantation at the Methodist Transplant Center. 
 
 Over the last decade, transplants once considered impossible have become a reality. More than two dozen face transplants have been done since the first one in France in 2005; the first one in the U.S. was done in Cleveland in 2008. 
 
 More than 70 hand transplants have been done around the world. 
 
 Last October, a Swedish woman became the first in the world to give birth after a womb transplant. 
 
 A host of patients have received transplants or implants of 3-D printed body parts, ranging from blood vessels to windpipes. 
 
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 Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
– Doctors at Texas' MD Anderson Cancer Center and Houston Methodist Hospital have made history with the first partial skull and scalp transplant from a human donor. Jim Boysen, 55, of Austin underwent a kidney-pancreas transplant in 1992 and had been taking immune suppression drugs to prevent organ rejection since. The drugs, however, increased his risk of cancer and in 2006 he was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, the BBC reports, which attacked muscles under his scalp—the ones "that make your hair stand on end when something gives you the creeps," adds the AP. Radiation treatment left Boysen with "a wound that was basically all the way through his skull to his brain," reconstructive plastic surgeon Jesse Selber says, and the immune suppression drugs kept his body from healing it. Then, suddenly, Boysen's kidney and pancreas began to fail—and the serious wound prevented doctors from carrying out a new transplant. After 18 months, a single donor was found; all Boysen's transplants were done in a single 15-hour operation on May 22. More than 50 doctors and health workers gave Boysen a 10-by-10-inch cap-shaped skull graft and a 15-inch-wide scalp graft, which reaches almost from ear to ear. The operation marked another first: the first composite tissue transplant performed alongside a solid organ transplant, KHOU reports. Boysen already has feeling in the scalp, which "shocked" a doctor during a test, and his new scalp has been sweating when hot. "I'm amazed at how great I feel," says Boysen, who was to leave the hospital yesterday. The donated skin is a remarkable color match to his own, to boot. "It's kind of shocking, really, how good they got it. I will have way more hair than when I was 21." (A woman just met the man who wears her brother's face.)