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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.