Woman who had the world's first face transplant dies from cancer more than a decade after pioneering surgery

Isabelle Dinoire had a triangle of face tissue from a brain-dead woman's nose, chin and mouth (diagram inset) transplanted in a 15-hour operation at Amiens Hospital, France, in 2005, following a savage dog attack.


She spent years taking immunosuppressant drugs to stop her body rejecting the transplant but which left her susceptible to cancer. Miss Dinoire, pictured immediately after surgery (top) and a year later (bottom) admitted struggling with her identity for years after receiving the new facial features. Today, hospital officials confirmed she died in April, aged 49, following a long illness, believed to be cancer.