She received the world's first partial face transplant in 2005, but died at the age of 49. Surprisingly, the death of the French woman, Isabelle Dinoire, in April, was not announced until Tuesday, as the family wanted to mourn her in private.
Dinoire had been mauled by her pet Labrador in 2005, after which she was given a new nose, chin and lips. It was a "groundbreaking, 15-hour operation," which was led by doctors Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-Michel Dubernard at the Amiens hospital.
Four months later she emerged in public with her new face. However, her conversation was slurred and there was a conspicuous scar. Still, she gave a press conference about having a "face like everyone else", with a smile that was stated to be a "medical breakthrough."
However, Meningaud, who has contributed to seven of France's 10 face transplants, wonders if they are worth it.
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.
"Dinoire suffered a rejection of the transplants last winter and lost part of the use of her lips," reports CNN."The heavy anti-rejection treatments she had to take contributed to the occurrence of two cancers."
A malignant tumour was discovered by her doctors, who said that cancer may have been triggered by either her treatment or habits of smoking.
Amiens Hospital warns that "Facial transplants remain extremely complex surgery with high risk. It's important to remember that face transplants are still in the evaluation stage. They ... cannot be considered a routine activity."
Following Dinoire's operation, doctors conducted 36 face transplant surgeries all over the world. One surgery last year included a scalp as well as functioning eyelids.
Six out of the 36 have died.
Isabelle Dinoire was a divorced mother of a couple of teenagers, and had to take some drugs to forget the dog bite in 2005. As she had been disabled, she agreed to get a transplant from a brain-dead woman, although the doctors warned her that a lot of risks could assail her.
In 2008, Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of plastic surgery transplantation at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston ran into her in 2008, even as his group had been planning the first face transplant.
"She seemed to be speaking perfectly fine, she ate with us. Like a normal person," he said.
Dinoire managed to gain facial mobility and even bought 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."
Still, though all the details are not clear, French media reports that she "succumbed" due to her most recent operation.
