A young father who was terribly disfigured in an electrical accident has revealed his new look alongside doctors who performed America's first full face transplant.

Visibly moved as he described how his young daughter called him "handsome" and how the first whiff of hospital food was so tantalising, Dallas Wiens, 26, said there were no words to thank the anonymous donor and his family.

"I can never express what has been done, what I have been given," said Mr Wiens at a press conference with doctors who performed the operation at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the north-eastern city of Boston.

Mr Wiens, who lives in Texas, burned his face off in November 2008 after the left side of his head touched an electrical wire while he was working up high in a cherry picker.

The high voltage electrical wire destroyed his nose and lips and blinded him. Mr Wiens lost his left eye in the accident and has no light perception remaining in his right eye.

The hospital said Mr Wiens was not likely to resemble the donor.

"The underlying facial bones and muscle of the recipient will change the shape of the facial tissue graft from the donor and will largely determine its shape and final appearance," it said in a statement.

At the press conference, Mr Wiens wore black sunglasses and a dark goatee beard, and appeared swollen on one side of his face.

"To me the face feels natural. It feels as if it has become my own," said Mr Wiens, acknowledging that he still feels numb in some places and needs to continue rehabilitation work to rebuild nerve function.

He spoke to reporters with some difficulty, but said he had already begun to regain his sense of smell.

"The first thing I was able to smell was hospital lasagne. You wouldn't imagine it, but it smelled delicious," he said.

"The ability to breathe through my nose normally, that in itself was a major gift."

Now he is considering university education and is looking forward to leading a more normal life with his young daughter, who was delighted by his new look.

"She actually said 'Daddy, you're so handsome,'" he said.

Plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac led the team of physicians, nurses and anaesthesiologists who worked for more than 15 hours to replace Mr Wiens's nose, lips, facial skin, nerves and muscles.

"He was quite literally a man without a face," Dr Pomahac said.

The operation was done in March by a 30-strong team at Brigham and Women's Hospital, which hailed the first full face transplant performed in the US as a sign of medical progress.

"In plastic surgery this represents, at least in my mind, a new frontier of reconstructive surgery, of what is possible now," said one of his doctors, Jeffrey Janis of Parkland Hospital.

"This really opens up an immense amount of doors, and represents a lot of hope where maybe before there was none."

The world's first full face transplant was unveiled last year by doctors in Spain, a European feat that followed the first partial face transplant in 2005, carried out on a French woman who had been mauled by a dog.

- AFP/Reuters