Woman with the first face surgery dies at 49!

The recipient of the world's first face transplant,
Isabelle Dinoire, has died, according to French
doctors.
A statement released by Amiens Hospital, which
performed the ground-breaking procedure in
November 2005, said Dinoire died on April 22,
2016 "following a long illness."
She was 49 years old.
The delay in announcing her death was explained
in the hospital statement.
"In accordance with the will of her relatives, no
obituary was published in the press in order to
protect their legitimate privacy at that painful
time," the statement said.
Though the hospital did not provide any details
on the cause of Dinoire's death, French media
reported she succumbed to complications from
her most recent operation.
Dinoire suffered a rejection of the transplants
last winter and lost part of the use of her lips, Le
Figaro, a prominent French newspaper reported
Tuesday. The heavy anti-rejection treatments
she had to take contributed to the occurrence of
two cancers, according Le Figaro.
Surgeons performed the operation when Dinoire
was 38 years old, after her face was mauled by
her dog.
The medical marvel created a wave of
controversy at the time, with some questioning
the ethics of transplanting a face before
attempting reconstructive surgery.
French surgeons Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard and
Dr. Bernard Devauchelle decided to carry out the
operation to stitch on a nose, chin and mouth
from a brain-dead donor, and opted out of the
more traditional reconstructive surgery route.
Dinoire was given the lower part of a face taken
from a woman who had committed suicide.
A year after having the procedure, Dinoire
declared: "It may be someone else's face, but
when I look in the mirror, I see me."
The surgery paved the way for other transplants
involving varying combinations of facial parts
performed in six other countries, including the
United States.


Source :cnn
Edited by DANIEL IKECHUKWU EKWUNIFE