The year 2008 saw a number of important medical breakthroughs, from a 14-year-old girl who survived nearly four months with no heart to a 70-year-old woman who gave birth to her first child.

A man covered in so many bark-like warts that he was dubbed the "Tree Man" got a whole new lease on life. Pioneering procedures gave a woman a new trachea made with her own tissue and a double-amputee two new arms. And a woman who was so terribly disfigured that the sight of her made children scream got a new face.