Isabelle Dinoire Has Died

The very first patient to go through a face transplant, Isabelle Dinoire, has passed away at the age of 49-years-old. According to a statement from Amiens Hospital - that did the ground-breaking procedure way back in 2005 – Dinoire died because of a long illness.

While the French doctors didn’t specify why Dinoire died, they did say that she died from complications due to a recent operation. Last winter she suffered from a rejection of her transplant, which resulted in the loss of function of part of her lips.

She originally went through the face transplant, after she was mauled by her own dog. However, the anti-rejection treatments after surgery contributed to her developing two cancers. This medical case had lots of controversy around the ethics of face transplants versus reconstructive surgery. Dinoire received the lower half of the face from a woman that committed suicide.

This surgery helped to paved the way for many countries to begin doing transplants using facial parts. Dinoire's obituary was delayed due to family wishes, to protect their privacy at this hard time.

The feminine name Isabelle, which is French for Isabel, which is a Medieval version of Elizabeth. The name Elizabeth was taken from the Greek Elisabet that was a version of the Hebrew name Elisheva, which meant “my God is abundance” or “my God is an oath”.

The name is very common throughout the English-speaking world, in many variants from Isabel to Isabella, even Belle, Issy or Izzy.