A French woman who underwent the world’s first partial face transplant has died in hospital aged 49 after a long illness.
Isabelle Dinoire, who lost her mouth and nose after a dog bite, made medical history in 2005 when she was given a partial face transplant using tissue from a brain-dead woman in a 15-hour operation at Amiens Picardie hospital.
Dinoire died in April, Le Figaro revealed, which was confirmed by doctors in Amiens who said they had not previously announced her death to protect her family’s privacy.
Doctors did not reveal the exact cause of death. Le Figaro reported that Dinoire’s body had rejected the transplant last year “and she had lost part of the use of her lips”.
The drugs that she had to take to prevent her body from rejecting the transplant left her vulnerable to cancer and two cancers had developed, the paper said.
At the age of 38, Dinoire received a triangular-shaped graft, comprising the nose, lips and chin from a brain-dead donor, to replace parts of her face that had been mauled by her pet cross-labrador.
Dinoire, a divorced mother of two, later explained the circumstances that led to her losing half her face. After a bad week, Dinoire, who was a seamstress, had taken a large dose of sleeping pills “to forget” her troubles. She woke on her sofa and tried to light a cigarette, and then noticed blood and the presence of her dog beside her. Looking in the mirror, she discovered her terrible injuries.
For months before the transplant, she had “the face of a monster”, she said. She had no mouth and her teeth and gums were exposed, skull-like, in a “reminder of death”. Most of her nose was missing. But she said she had no hatred for her dog Tanya, who she felt had been trying to save her.
It was through British press reports that she discovered her donor had killed herself. She said she felt a bond to her “twin sister” through their suicidal urges. “That it was someone who wanted to die, like me … It’s odd to know that she saved me,” she said.
After the transplant she said she was determined to make a success of her life, learning to eat and speak and also wanting to be able to kiss.
Two years after the transplant she described in a book that the hardest thing was accepting the inside of “someone else’s” mouth. “It was odd to touch it with my tongue. It was soft. It was horrible.”
She said of the discovery of a hair on her chin: “It was odd. I’d never had one. I thought, ‘It’s me that has given it life, but the hair is hers.’Sometimes I put my hand to my face to check that it’s still there.”
Since Dinoire’s partial face transplant, more than 30 people worldwide have had similar treatment.
- In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here