 FILE - In this Feb. 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... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Feb. 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.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Feb. 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.... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Feb. 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... (Associated Press) 
 
 PARIS (AP) — 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. 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. 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. News of her death, announced by a hospital in Amiens, was delayed to respect her family's privacy. 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. Transplant woman tells of her life with a new face Read more 
 
 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. 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. “That it was someone who wanted to die, like me … It’s odd to know that she saved me,” she said.
– Isabelle Dinoire has died 11 years after receiving a new mouth, nose, and chin in the world's first partial face transplant, the Guardian reports. She was 49. The procedure was seen as a medical breakthrough at the time, notes the AP. Dinoire died in April, but her death wasn't announced until Tuesday, as the French woman's family originally hoped to keep it private. The BBC reports Dinoire had been happy with the results of the transplant but not with the international attention it brought her. The announcement of her death mentioned only a long illness, but the BBC reports Dinoire died from cancer, to which she was vulnerable because of the immunosuppressants needed to keep her body from rejecting her new face. The Guardian reports Dinoire wanted "to forget" her problems when she took sleeping pills in 2005. When she came to, she went to light a cigarette only to discover her pet dog had chewed off her mouth and nose. She believed her dog was trying to save her. Dinoire's injuries were too severe for facial reconstruction, leading to the groundbreaking surgery. "I have a face like everyone else," the AP quotes Dinoire as saying a year after her surgery. "A door to the future is opening." But it wasn't easy. Getting used to the inside of a new mouth, for example. "It was soft," the Guardian quotes Dinoire as saying. "It was horrible." And she had lost partial use of her lips last year as her body continued to reject the new face. Nearly 40 face transplants have been performed since Dinoire's operation. (This hand transplant recipient regrets having surgery.)