Sadly, Isabelle Dinoire, the first-ever recipient of a partial face transplant, died in April after a long illness, according to a statement from the Amiens University Hospital in France.
She was surrounded by family, according to the hospital’s statement, who wished to keep her death private and out of the press while they grieved, which is why it wasn’t reported at the time.
While the hospital did not give more details about the cause of death, a joint story from Agence France-Presse and Huffington Post France reported that her body rejected her transplants this winter, causing her to lose partial use of her lips. Le Figaro, the first newspaper to report the story, noted that the medications she was taking to prevent the transplant rejection were linked to two cancers she had. She was 49 years old. Read more at Huffington Post.
In 2005, Dinoire, at the age of 38, received a face graft which included the nose, lips and chin of another patient – a brain-dead donor. The medication Dinoire took to prevent her body from rejecting the graft left her vulnerable to cancer, NDTV reported. Two cancers had developed and Dinoire reportedly succumbed to the disease.
Medical experts attempted to restore Dinoire’s facial features after her dog mauled her face in 2005. The operation took around 15 hours, the Daily Mail reported.
Bernard Duvauchelle, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, and Jean-Michel Dubernard, a surgeon at Edouard Herriot hospital in the city of Lyon, led the legendary operation, Medical Xpress reported.