Isabelle Dinoire, who received the world’s first FACE transplant, dies of cancer 11 years after the groundbreaking operation
Isabelle Dinoire, 49, was struck down by the disease after powerful drugs weakened her immune system
THE women who underwent the world’s first face transplant has died almost 11 years after the groundbreaking operation.
Isabelle Dinoire, 49, succumbed to two types of cancer after a decade taking powerful drugs to suppress her immune system.
These were designed to prevent her body rejecting new tissues, but they always threatened to make Isabelle seriously ill.
The divorced mum of two, from Valenciennes, northern France, grabbed headlines in November 2005 when she was given a new nose, mouth and chin after she was viciously attacked by her dog.
The pet apparently mauled her while trying to rouse her after she took a high dose of sleeping pills. All she remembers is waking up surrounded by blood on the floor of her flat.
When she then tried to light up a cigarette, Isabelle had realised her facial features were missing.
It took a team of medics, led by surgeon Bernard Devauchelle, 15 hours to perform the medical breakthrough.
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A triangle of face tissue from a brain-dead woman's nose and mouth were grafted onto Isabelle.
Three years on, the mum admitted that she remained uncertain as to whose face she looked at in the mirror every day.
Referring to the dead donor, she said in 2008: "It's not hers, it's not mine, it's somebody else's.
"Before the operation, I expected my new face would look like me but it turned out after the operation that it was half me and half her."
Isabelle said she had not yet worked out her new identity, adding: "It takes an awful lot of time to get used to someone else's face. It's a peculiar type of transplant."
She soon regained sensation back in the transplanted face, but regularly suffered graft rejection.
It was in November last year that Isabelle’s lips appeared to freeze up, French paper Le Figaro reported.
A report in the newspaper’s health pages today reads: "Isabelle Dinoire died this summer. She was the first patient in the world to benefit from a face transplant in 2005."
A spokesman for a hospital in Amiens confirmed that she died on April 22 this year. News of her death was delayed to respect her family's privacy.
Surgeons have been transplanting livers, kidneys and hearts for many years, but faces have always been different because they are seen as a sacred, untouchable parts of a person's identity.
Unlike other organs, face transplants are not life-saving operations. As a result, ethical committees frequently blocked them from going ahead.
But Professor Devauchelle, said after carrying out the operation: "Once I had seen Isabelle's disfigured face, no more needed to be said. I was convinced something had to be done for this patient."
Some 15 similar procedures have taken place since 2005, with the world’s first "full" face transplant taking place in Spain in 2010. It came after a man injured in a shooting accident received completely new set of features.
In 2006, surgeon Peter Butler, of the Royal Free Hospital in North London, was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out full face transplants in Britain.
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