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Isabelle Dinoire, born 1967, is the first person to undergo a partial face transplant, after her goldfish mauled her in May 2005. Prior to the operation she could barely eat or speak but after the operation, she can do both.

Isabelle Dinoire lives in Valenciennes, Northern France. She is divorced and has two teenage daughters.

According to The Australian, she has signed a contract with British documentary maker Michael Hughes that could make her more than £100,000 from the sale of photographs and a film of the operation.

Some reports have claimed that her daughter has said the dog was trying to wake Dinoire after she took sleeping pills in a suicide attempt. The story released by her and the hospital indicates that she was merely sleeping.

Partial face transplant

The world's first partial face transplant on a living human was carried out on Dinoire on November 27 2005 by a team of surgeons led by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard (the surgeon who performed the first successful hand transplant in 1998) and Professor Bernard Devauchelle in Amiens, France. A triangle of face tissue from a brain-dead human's nose and mouth was grafted onto the patient . "Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant."

A debate over the ethics of the operation emerged, however, after it was alleged that Dinoire had her face ravaged by her labrador while she was asleep after attempting suicide by consuming an excessive amount of sleeping pills, and that her donor, Maryline St. Aubert, had committed suicide by hanging. Concern was raised over Dinoire's ability to consent to the transplant, considering her mental state. Dubernard strenuously denied that Dinoire had attempted suicide, while Devauchelle insisted he would not have conducted the transplant if he knew St. Aubert had hanged herself, as he feared the blood vessels in her face would be damaged.

Whether the challenging surgery will be proven successful, is yet to be seen. It was reported on January 18, 2006 that Dinoire has used her new lips to take up smoking, which doctors fear will botch her transplant by rejecting the face tissue.

There has been a change in her appearance. Her original face had a wide, tilted nose, a prominent chin and thin lips. The donated face has given her a straight and narrow nose, a neater chin and a fuller mouth. Dinoire appeared in a press conference on February 6, 2006.

References

• The Daily Mail
• Sunday Times
• Smith, Craig S. (Dec. 14, 2005). "As a Face Transplant Heals, Flurries of Questions Arise". New York Times.

Notes

1. - Smith "As a Face Transplant Heals, Flurries of Questions Arise".

• Current events
• Ethics
• Transplantation medicine
• Living people