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A French woman who received the world’s first partial face transplant in 2005 has died aged 49.
Isabelle Dinoire underwent the revolutionary surgery after her nose, mouth and chin were mauled by her pet Labrador. Her injuries meant she had difficulty speaking and eating.
Doctors at Amiens Hospital in Valenciennes, northern France, grafted the face of a brain-dead female donor on to Ms Dinoire’s during the procedure, which has since been replicated dozens of times across the world.
Ms Dinoire succumbed to two forms of cancer on 22 April, a statement released by the hospital on Tuesday said.
The hospital said they did not announce her death at the time due to a request for privacy from her family during “this painful time”.
Ms Dinoire had to take powerful immunosuppressive drugs following the surgery in November 2005 to stop her body rejecting the face but the side effects of the drugs include a weaker immune system.
Despite this her surgeon, Professor Bernard Devauchelle, was still positive about the results during a public lecture in 2011.
He said she was doing “very well” and “the results went beyond what we had hoped...This first attempt was a masterstroke”.
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PA
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Reuters
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The news of her death comes after a US firefighter said he felt like “a normal guy” one year after undergoing a similar procedure in Mississippi.
Patrick Hardison’s face was burned beyond all recognition when the burning roof of a house collapsed on top of him when he responded to call to rescue a woman in the town of Senatobia in 2001.
In August 2015, Mr Harrison, 42, was given the face of 26-year-old cyclist David Rodebaugh at the NYU Langone Medical Centre in New York City.
He said he was able to take his children to Disney World in June and swam in a pool with them for the first time in 15 years and his “life had been renewed” by the surgery.
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