Woman dies after undergoing the world’s first face transplant (Graphics)

Isabelle Dinoire, 49, the French woman who underwent the world’s first face transplant has died almost eleven years since the groundbreaking operation. She succumbed to two types of cancer earlier this summer after a decade taking powerful immunosuppressant drugs. 

The drugs were designed to prevent her body rejecting new tissues, but they always threatened to make Ms Dinoire seriously ill.

Miss Dinoire, from Valenciennes, northern France, captured the imagination of the world in November 2005 when she was given a new nose, mouth and chin at the nearby Amiens Hospital.

 

Isabelle Dinoire was rushed to hospital in 2005 after her pet dog ripped off her face

She was rushed to hospital after her pet dog apparently ripped off the vital features, but she had no memory of what happened.

After taking sleeping pills, all the divorced mother of two could remember was waking up with blood on the floor of her flat.

 

Isabelle Dinoire, of Valenciennes, northern France, before her accident

 

Isabelle Dinoire was attacked by a dog but had no memory what had happened

When she tried to light up a cigarette, Miss Dinoire had realised her facial features were missing.

It took a team led by Professor Bernard Duvauchelle, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, 15 hours to perform the medical breakthrough.

A triangle of face tissue from a brain-dead woman's nose and mouth were grafted onto Miss Dinoire.

Three years on, Miss Dinoire admitted that she remained uncertain as to whose face she looked at in the mirror every day.

 

Isabelle Dinoire during surgery. The medical procedure took 15 hours to complete

 

Miss Dinoire received a new nose, mouth and chin in the ground-breaking operation in 2005

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.’

Miss Dinoire 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.’

Miss Dinoire soon regained sensation back in the transplanted face, but regularly suffered graft rejection.

 

Doctor Bernard Devauchelle, who performed the face transplant on Miss Dinoire

A report in the news outlet’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.’

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 Dubernard, 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.’