Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption In 2006, Isabelle Dinoire described the moment she saw her disfigured face

The first-ever person to have a face transplant, Frenchwoman Isabelle Dinoire, has died, French doctors say.

In 2005, surgeons gave her a new nose and mouth after she was disfigured by her pet dog.

But heavy use of immunosuppressant drugs weakened her and she succumbed to cancer in April at the age of 49, the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says.

News of her death, announced by a hospital in Amiens, was delayed to respect her family's privacy.

She told the BBC in 2009 that when she looked in the mirror she saw a mixture of herself and the donor. "The donor is always with me," she said.

Figaro newspaper said she had suffered another transplant rejection. The strong anti-rejection treatment she was receiving led to two cancers, it added.

In her BBC interview she said her disfigurement by her dog had come as a result of an attempt to end her life.

After taking an overdose of sleeping pills, she awoke lying beside a pool of blood, with her pet Labrador at her side. The dog had apparently found her unconscious, and desperate to rouse her, had gnawed away at her face.

The injuries to her mouth, nose and chin were so extreme that doctors ruled out a routine face reconstruction. Instead they proposed a ground-breaking face transplant.

She was happy with the surgery but expressed distress at the attention from the media and passers-by that the operation brought her.

In recent years, face transplants have been performed in several countries, including the US, Spain, Turkey, China and Poland.</s>In this February 6, 2006 file photo, Isabelle Dinoire, the woman who received the world's first partial face transplant with a new nose, chin and mouth, in an operation on Nov. 27, 2005, addresses reporters during her first press conference since the transplant at the Amiens hospital, northern France.

After being severely disfigured by her pet Labrador, Dinoire was given a new nose, chin and lips in 2005.

Isabelle Dinoire, a Frenchwoman who received the world’s first partial face transplant, has died more than a decade after a complex and daring operation that set the stage for dozens of similar transplants worldwide. She was 49.

The hospital said Dinoire died in April, but didn’t announce it until Tuesday because the family wanted to mourn privately.

After being severely disfigured by her pet Labrador, Dinoire was given a new nose, chin and lips in a groundbreaking, 15-hour operation in 2005 led by doctors Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-Michel Dubernard in the Amiens hospital. When she first appeared in public with her new face four months later, her speech was slurred and a scar clearly visible but the fact that she could speak to reporters of having a “face like everyone else” and almost smile was seen as a medical breakthrough.

Soon afterward, doctors discovered a malign tumour, according to Tuesday’s statement. Independent doctors who followed her case said she had lung cancer that might have been linked to her treatment, or to her lifetime of smoking.

The operation changed Dinoire’s life and drew international attention. There have been 36 face transplant surgeries around the world since 2005, including one last year in New York that was the first to include a scalp and functioning eyelids.

Of the 36, six have died, the Amiens hospital noted.

“Facial transplants remain extremely complex surgery with high risk,” it said. “It’s important to remember that face transplants are still in the evaluation stage. They ... cannot be considered a routine activity.”

Dinoire, a divorced mother of two teenage daughters, said she was wrestling with personal problems at the time of the 2005 dog attack and “took some drugs to forget.” She said she was passed out when the dog bit her.

Disabled by her disfigurement, she welcomed the opportunity for a transplant from a brain-dead woman. Her doctors said they repeatedly warned her of the risks involved.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of plastic surgery transplantation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, met with Dinoire in 2008 as his team was preparing its first face transplant, and called it a “really profound experience.”

“She seemed to be speaking perfectly fine, she ate with us. Like a normal person,” he said.

Pomahac noted that face transplant recipients are about twice as likely to reject the new tissue as hand transplant patients. But he remains convinced that transplants are right for some patients who “have no other options.”

Dr. Vijay Gorantla, administrative medical director of the Reconstructive Transplant Program at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said Dinoire never regretted the transplant publicly, and her quality of life improved. “She didn’t want to be a recluse ... or a monster in public.”

Gorantla said surgeons should not be in a race to perform transplants but should carefully weigh the risks and benefits. “We are still learning” with each new case, he said.

Meningaud, who has been involved in seven of France’s 10 face transplants, is now arguing for suspending the procedures altogether so that the medical community can take stock of whether the long—term benefits are worth the physical and psychological toll they take on patients.

In Dinoire’s case, “the results were very good in the medium term, but the long-term results were not so good,” Meningaud said.

“It’s a rather high price to pay for the patient. It’s time to mark a pause,” he said.

A year after the surgery, doctors said Dinoire was gaining more and more sensitivity and facial mobility, and she got herself a new dog.

“I can open my mouth and eat. I feel my lips, my nose and my mouth,” Dinoire said at a news conference in 2006.

“I have a face like everyone else,” she said. “A door to the future is opening.”</s>A woman who underwent the world's first face transplant has died almost eleven years since the groundbreaking operation.

Isabelle Dinoire, 49, succumbed to two types of cancer earlier this summer after a decade taking powerful immunosuppressant drugs.

These 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.

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.

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

It took a team of med 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.

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.

It was in November last year that Miss Dinoire's lips appeared to freeze up, reported Le Figaro newspaper.

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.'

Some 15 similar procedures have taken place since 2005, with the world's first 'full' face transplant taking place in Spain in 2010, when a man injured in a shooting accident received completely new set of features.

In 2006, surgeon Peter Butler, of the Royal Free Hospital in London, was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out full face transplants in Britain.</s>A Frenchwoman who became the first-ever patient to undergo a face transplant has died.

Isabelle Dinoire underwent pioneering surgery in 2005 to have a new nose, chin and lips after she was left severely disfigured following an attack from her dog.

Ms Dinoire died in April but the announcement was delayed until today to respect her family’s wishes. She was 49.

The BBC reported she died from cancer. It is understood she took strong medication after being treated for a transplant rejection.

In 2009 she told the BBC in an interview she was attacked by her Labrador after an attempt to end her life.

She said the dog had gnawed at her face in a desperate attempt to wake her after she took an overdose of sleeping pills.

The injuries she suffered were so severe doctors opted against a facial reconstruction and decided to perform a face transplant.

Ms Dinoire said she was happy with the transplant but expressed unhappiness at the level of interest in her following the operation.

Her face transplant paved the way for dozens of other procedures across the world.</s>A French woman who received the world’s first partial face transplant has died, 11 years after the surgery that set the stage for dozens of other transplants worldwide.

The Amiens University Hospital in northern France announced Isabelle Dinoire’s death on Tuesday.

It said she died aged 49 in April after a long illness, but her family wanted her death kept private. The hospital went public with the death after Le Figaro reported on it.

The hospital did not release any further details and it was not clear if her illness was related to the transplant.

Ms Dinoire was severely disfigured by her pet Labrador — and was given a new nose, chin and lips in 2005 by doctors Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-Michel Dubernard.

Medications that patients must take to prevent their bodies from rejecting the new organs can cause other illnesses and have severe side effects. Le Figaro said she had suffered two cancers linked to the transplant and lost partial use of her transplanted lips last year.

The operation changed Ms Dinoire’s life and drew international attention. There have been nearly 40 face transplant surgeries around the world since 2005, including one last year in New York that was the first to include a scalp and functioning eyelids.

Ms Dinoire, a divorced mother of two teenage daughters, said she was wrestling with personal problems at the time of the 2005 dog attack and “took some drugs to forget”. She said she had passed out when the dog bit her.

Disabled by her disfigurement, she welcomed the opportunity for a transplant from a brain-dead woman. Her doctors said they repeatedly warned her of the risks involved.

Her operation was “an unquestionable surgical success” and the medical community learned from her experience, said Dr Jean-Paul Meningaud, who heads the reconstructive surgery department at the Henri Mondor Hospital south of Paris and was not involved in treating Ms Dinoire.

But Dr Meningaud, who has been involved in seven of France’s 10 face transplants, is now arguing for suspending the procedures so that the medical community can take stock of whether the long-term benefits are worth the physical and psychological toll they take on patients.

In Ms Dinoire’s case, “the results were very good in the medium term, but the long-term results were not so good,” Dr Meningaud said.

He said that face transplant recipients are having more difficulty with anti-rejection medication than doctors initially predicted, and are requiring more follow-up surgery.

“It’s a rather high price to pay for the patient. It’s time to mark a pause,” he said.

Her immune system nearly rejected the transplant twice. A year later, doctors said she was gaining more and more sensitivity and facial mobility, and she got herself a new dog.

“I can open my mouth and eat. I feel my lips, my nose and my mouth,” Ms Dinoire said at a news conference in 2006.

“I have a face like everyone else,” she said. “A door to the future is opening.” – PA</s>Lille (France) (AFP) - The world's first face transplant recipient, Frenchwoman Isabelle Dinoire, died in April "after a long illness", a hospital said Tuesday.

In 2005, at the age of 38, Dinoire received a graft comprising the nose, lips and chin of a brain-dead donor to replace parts of her face that had been mauled by her dog.

The hospital in Amiens, northern France, confirmed the death of "Mrs D., the first patient in the world to receive a face transplant".

The hospital said her death had been kept quiet to protect her family's privacy.

The ground-breaking operation had raised hopes around the world for victims with faces disfigured in accidents or assaults, with surgeons in the United States, Spain, China, Belgium, Poland and Turkey performing partial or full transplants since the ground-breaking surgery on Dinoire.

But the initial enthusiasm over the procedure has been tempered by a daunting risk that the patient's body will eventually reject the donor's tissue.

Le Figaro newspaper 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 susceptible to cancer, and two forms of cancer had developed, the report said.

Jean-Pierre Meningaud, of a team at a Paris hospital that has performed seven face transplants, told AFP: "All the patients we operated on have had reactions of rejection, which leads to higher doses of drugs, and with them, the risks."

He added that in addition to the risk of rejection a number of other problems can crop up including "grafts that age a little faster than (the patient), problems of (skin) colour, high blood pressure (and) mood."

Meningaud said that with Dinoire's death, "we should put these transplants on hold pending advances in immunology".

Dinoire gave a remarkable news conference in February 2006, just three months after the operation, when the blonde, blue-eyed mother of two appeared before a scrum of TV cameras.

She appeared to be wearing thick makeup to disguise the scars of the procedure and lips that were heavy and inflexible.

She spoke with a pronounced lisp but was otherwise comprehensible as she recounted how she had fainted after "taking medicines to forget" personal problems.

"When I woke up, I tried to light a cigarette and I couldn't understand why it didn't stay between my lips. Then I saw the pool of blood and the dog next to me," she said.

"I went to look in the mirror and was horrified."

But the ground-breaking operation gave her a new lease of life.

"Since my operation I have a face, like everyone... I will be able to resume a normal life," the divorcee said.

The operation was led by Jean-Michel Dubernard, a world-renowned surgeon at Edouard Herriot hospital in the eastern city of Lyon, and Bernard Devauchelle, a professor of facial surgery.

Dubernard had performed the world's first hand transplant in September 1998, followed by the first double hand and forearm transplant in January 2000.

The transplant team came under fire from within the French medical profession for releasing post-operation pictures of the patient.

At the time, a specialist in reconstructive surgery, Maurice Mimoun, recognised the emotional nature of the debate, noting the face's "relationship with the soul".

The first full face transplant was performed by a Spanish team in March 2010 on a man whose face was disfigured in an accident.</s>A Frenchwoman who received the world's first partial face transplant has died, 11 years after the surgery that set the stage for dozens of other transplants worldwide.

The Amiens University Hospital in northern France announced Isabelle Dinoire's death on Tuesday. It said she died in April after a long illness, but her family wanted her death kept private. She was 49.

The hospital didn't release any further details and it wasn't clear if her illness was related to the transplant.

Dinoire was severely disfigured by her pet Labrador, and was given a new nose, chin and lips in 2005 by doctors Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-Michel Dubernard.

Medications that patients must take to prevent their bodies from rejecting the new organs can cause other illnesses and have severe side effects.</s>Isabelle Dinoire, a Frenchwoman who received the world’s first partial face transplant, has died more than a decade after a complex and daring operation that set the stage for dozens of similar transplants worldwide. She was 49.

Her life with a new face was a miracle to many, but was also marred by infections, kidney trouble and hypertension linked to her treatment. In announcing her death on Tuesday, the Amiens University Hospital in northern France said Dinoire’s experience “illustrates perfectly the high stakes of face transplants”.

The hospital said Dinoire died in April, but they did not announce the news until Tuesday because the family wanted to mourn privately.

After being severely disfigured by her pet Labrador, Dinoire was given a new nose, chin and lips in a ground-breaking, 15-hour operation in 2005 led by doctors Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-Michel Dubernard in the Amiens hospital.

When she first appeared in public with her new face four months later, her speech was slurred and a scar clearly visible – but the fact that she could speak to reporters of having a “face like everyone else” and almost smile was seen as a medical breakthrough.

However, despite what the hospital described as a “remarkable” transplant, Dinoire had health issues for years linked to the medication she took to keep her body from rejecting the new face, and she underwent further surgery in January.

Soon afterward, doctors discovered a malign tumor, according to Tuesday’s statement. Independent doctors who followed her case said she had lung cancer that might have been linked to her treatment, or to her lifetime of smoking.

The operation changed Dinoire’s life and drew international attention. There have been 36 face transplant surgeries around the world since 2005, including one last year in New York that was the first to include a scalp and functioning eyelids. Of the 36 patients, six have died, the Amiens hospital noted.

“Facial transplants remain extremely complex surgery with high risk,” it said. “It’s important to remember that face transplants are still in the evaluation stage. They cannot be considered a routine activity.”

Dinoire, a divorced mother of two teenage daughters, said she was wrestling with personal problems at the time of the 2005 dog attack and “took some drugs to forget”. She said she was unconscious when the dog bit her.

Disabled by her disfigurement, she welcomed the opportunity for a transplant from a brain-dead woman. Her doctors said they repeatedly warned her of the risks involved. Her operation was “an unquestionable surgical success” and the medical community learned from her experience, said Dr Jean-Paul Meningaud, who heads the reconstructive surgery department at the Henri Mondor Hospital south of Paris and was not involved in treating Dinoire.

Dr Bohdan Pomahac, director of plastic surgery transplantation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, met Dinoire in 2008 as his team was preparing its first face transplant, and called it a “really profound experience”.

“She seemed to be speaking perfectly fine, she ate with us. Like a normal person,” he said.

Dr Pomahac noted that face transplant recipients are about twice as likely to reject the new tissue as hand transplant patients.

But he remains convinced that transplants are right for some patients who “have no other options”.

Dr Vijay Gorantla, administrative medical director of the Reconstructive Transplant Programme at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said Dinoire never regretted the transplant publicly, and her quality of life improved. “She didn’t want to be a recluse… or a monster in public,” he said,

Dr Gorantla said surgeons should not be in a race to perform transplants but should carefully weigh the risks and benefits. “We are still learning” with each new case, he said.

Dr Meningaud, who has been involved in seven of France’s ten face transplants, is now arguing for suspending the procedures altogether so that the medical community can take stock of whether the long-term benefits are worth the physical and psychological toll they take on patients.

In Dinoire’s case, “the results were very good in the medium term, but the long-term results were not so good,” Dr Meningaud said.

He said that face transplant recipients are having more difficulty with anti-rejection medication than doctors initially predicted, and are requiring more follow-up surgery. “It’s a rather high price to pay for the patient. It’s time to mark a pause,” he said.

A year after the surgery, doctors said Dinoire was gaining more and more sensitivity and facial mobility, and she had even got herself a new dog.

“I can open my mouth and eat. I feel my lips, my nose and my mouth,” Dinoire said at a news conference in 2006. I have a face like everyone else. A door to the future is opening.”</s>A French woman who received the world's first face transplant died of a cancer that was not related to the anti-rejection drugs she was taking, doctors have revealed.

It was announced yesterday that Isabelle Dinoire, 49, who underwent the historic operation in 2005 after being maimed by her dog, had died in April following a long illness that was thought to be linked to the medication.

Following the surgery, Ms Dinoire, from Valenciennes, northern France, suffered from many complications related to the strong immunosupressant drugs all transplant patients have to take, to stop her body from rejecting the graft.

She battled cancer, infection, diminished kidney function and high blood pressure at the Amien-Picardie University Hospital where she received the transplant.

However, doctors have today said that in January of this year, they discovered a rare malignant tumour, which was beyond the remedy of any available treatment, which caused her death.

But in a statement, the hospital said that the tumour 'cannot be scientifically linked to immunosupressant treatment.'

It also added that she died on April 'surrounded by her loved ones and medical team.'

Ms Dinoire, a divorced seamstress, was left disfigured with her face nothing more than bloody shreds of flesh when her beloved pet Labrador, Tania, mauled her in an attack at her flat.

A degree of mystery still surrounds the events of May 2005, of which Ms Dinoire had no memory. Last year she admitted she was depressed and had taken sleeping pills to help her rest after a tough week. Media reports later suggested she had tried to kill herself.

After taking the medication, she became ill and collapsed, and while she was unconscious her beloved pet attacked her, causing facial injuries of almost unimaginable horror.

Ms Dinoire, who didn't feel the attack, said Tania had never bitten anyone before the incident, and believed that she was trying to save her.

Writing in her diary, which was published in France as an autobiography called Le Baiser d'Isabelle, or Isabelle's Kiss, she recalled: 'When I woke up I tried to light a cigarette and I could not understand why I couldn't put the cigarette between my lips - it was then that I saw a pool of blood and the dog beside it.

'I went to look at myself in the mirror, and there I could not believe what I saw - it was horrible.'

Hours later at Valenciennes Hospital she looked at her reflection, describing what she saw as 'the face of a monster'.

On the advice of specialists at Amiens Hospital, where she was transferred, she was advised to wear a surgical mask that covered her face. The cover made her an easy target for strangers who thought she was obsessed with germs.

It was a month after the attack, in June 2005, that Ms Dinoire approached by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, who proposed making medical history by performing a face transplant.

Professor Dubernard and Professor Bernard Duvauchelle, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, led the team during the groundbreaking 15-hour surgery.

A triangle of face tissue from the donor's nose and mouth were grafted on to Ms Dinoire.

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.'

After the transplant Ms Dinoire said she was determined to make a success of her life, learning to eat and speak and also wanting to be able to kiss.

But soon after the operation there were signs that her body had rejected the new tissue. Doctors controlled the problem by increasing the doses of the immuno-suppressants which she had to take for life.

Ms Dinoire soon regained sensation back in the transplanted face, learning to smile a year after the surgery. But she regularly suffered graft rejection.

In November 2014, Ms Dinoire's immune system started rejecting the graft and she reportedly lost partial control of her lips, despite the anti-rejection medicine. She had a new operation in January this year which was able to fix some of the damage

However, she continued to battle with psychological problems connected to the surgery.

Speaking three years after the transplant, she admitted that she remained uncertain as to whose face she looked at in the mirror every day.

She said: '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.'

While doubts might now be cast over the lasting personal effects of the transplant, the operation was 'an unquestionable surgical success', said Dr. Jean-Paul Meningaud, who heads the reconstructive surgery department at the Henri Mondor Hospital south of Paris. Some 15 similar procedures have taken place since 2005.

In 2006, surgeon Peter Butler, of the Royal Free Hospital in London, was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out full face transplants in Britain.

But Dr Meningaud, who has been involved in seven of France's 10 face transplants, is now arguing for suspending the procedures so that the medical community can take stock of whether the long-term benefits are worth the physical and psychological toll they take on patients.

Speaking of Ms Dinoire, he said: 'The results were very good in the medium term, but the long-term results were not so good.'

He said that face transplant recipients were having more difficulty with anti-rejection medication than doctors initially predicted, and are requiring more follow-up surgery.

'It's a rather high price to pay for the patient. It's time to mark a pause.'</s>Isabelle Dinoire, a Frenchwoman who received the world's first partial face transplant, has died 11 years after the surgery that set the stage for dozens of other transplants worldwide. She was 49.

The Amiens University Hospital in northern France said in a statement that Dinoire died in April after a long illness. The hospital didn't release any further details and it wasn't clear if her illness was related to the transplant.

SOME IMAGES IN THIS STORY MAY BE UPSETTING TO SOME READERS.

 

 Her family wanted her death kept private. But the hospital went public with the death after Le Figaro reported on it.

After being severely disfigured by her pet labrador, Dinoire was given a new nose, chin and lips in a ground-breaking, 15-hour operation in 2005 led by doctors Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-Michel Dubernard in the Amiens hospital. When she first appeared in public with her new face four months later, her speech was slurred and a scar clearly visible - but the fact that she could speak to reporters of having a "face like everyone else" and almost smile was seen as a medical breakthrough.

READ MORE:

 * Face transplant patient 'has hope now'

 * US firefighter gets world's most extensive face transplant

 * Surgeons perform US' first successful uterus transplant

 * First US face transplant patient revealed

 

 The operation changed Dinoire's life and drew international attention. There have been nearly 40 face transplant surgeries around the world since 2005, including one last year in New York that was the first to include a scalp and functioning eyelids.

 

 However, medications that patients must take to prevent their bodies from rejecting the new organs can cause other illnesses and have severe side effects. Le Figaro newspaper, which first reported Dinoire's death Tuesday, said she had suffered two cancers linked to the transplant and lost partial use of her transplanted lips last year.

Dinoire, a divorced mother of two teenage daughters, said she was wrestling with personal problems at the time of the 2005 dog attack and "took some drugs to forget." She said she was passed out when the dog bit her.

Disabled by her disfigurement, she welcomed the opportunity for a transplant from a brain-dead woman. Her doctors said they repeatedly warned her of the risks involved.

Her operation was "an unquestionable surgical success" and the medical community learned from her experience, said Dr Jean-Paul Meningaud, who heads the reconstructive surgery department at the Henri Mondor Hospital south of Paris and wasn't involved in treating Dinoire.

But Meningaud, who has been involved in seven of France's 10 face transplants, is now arguing for suspending the procedures so that the medical community can take stock of whether the long-term benefits are worth the physical and psychological toll they take on patients.

In Dinoire's case, "The results were very good in the medium term, but the long-term results were not so good," Meningaud said.

He said that face transplant recipients are having more difficulty with anti-rejection medication than doctors initially predicted, and are requiring more follow-up surgery.

"It's a rather high price to pay for the patient. It's time to mark a pause,"' he said.

Her immune system nearly rejected the transplant twice. A year later, doctors said she was gaining more and more sensitivity and facial mobility, and she got herself a new dog.

"I can open my mouth and eat. I feel my lips, my nose and my mouth," Dinoire said at a news conference in 2006.

"I have a face like everyone else,"' she said. "A door to the future is opening."
Isabelle Dinoire, who received the world's first face transplant, is reported to have died from cancer at the age of 49 in April 2016.