Frenchwoman, 1st recipient of face transplant, dies of cancer
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THE world’s first face transplant recipient, Frenchwoman Isabelle Dinoire, died of a cancer unrelated to medicine she was taking to stop her body rejecting the graft, doctors said yesterday.
Maimed by her dog, Dinoire received part of a brain-dead person’s face in a historic operation in 2005, aged 38.
On Tuesday, doctors announced she had died in April after a “long illness.”
The blonde, blue-eyed mother of two suffered many complications over the years related to the strong immunosuppressant drugs all transplant patients have to take.
She had infections, a tumor which was successfully treated, diminished kidney function, and high blood pressure, the Amiens-Picardie university hospital in northern France, where the transplant was done, said in a statement.
Then in November 2014, Dinoire’s immune system started rejecting the graft and she reportedly lost partial control of her lips, despite the anti-rejection medicine.
The drugs rein in the immune system, which is prone to identify a transplant organ as an intruder that needs to be got rid of. But in doing so, the patient is also left exposed to infections and cancers.
Dinoire had a new operation in January this year which was able to fix some of the damage, the statement said. But a few months later, during a checkup, doctors found that a malignant tumor which had been operated on in 2015 had returned.
“This time, unfortunately, it was beyond remedy of any available treatment,” said the hospital statement.
It described the killer as a “rare tumor, which cannot be scientifically linked to immunosuppressant treatment.”
Dinoire died in hospital on April 22 “surrounded by her loved ones and medical team.”
The groundbreaking procedure in 2005 had raised hopes for people with faces disfigured in accidents or assaults, and surgeons in the United States, Spain, China, Belgium, Poland and Turkey started conducting similar procedures.
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