'So grateful for my new face'

Published on Tuesday 7 February 2006 00:31

Key points

• Isabelle Dinoire received the first face transplant ten weeks ago

• Dinoire spoke to the media for the first time yesterday after the proceedure

• A team from University Hospital Centre in Amiens carried out the transplant

Key quote

"At the moment I can open my mouth and eat and use my lips and nose. However, I have to continue my exercises and take medication to exercise all my facial muscles," - Isabelle Dinoire

Story in full TEN weeks after receiving the world's first partial face transplant, a French mother of two spoke for the first time yesterday to say how grateful she was to have "a face like everyone else".

Isabelle Dinoire, 38, told a news conference at the hospital in the northern French city of Amiens where she underwent treatment that the 15-hour operation had helped her regain a normal life.

Mrs Dinoire lost her nose, both lips and her chin when her dog mauled her as she slept in June last year. The labrador was later put down, against the family's wishes.

She spoke with difficulty before the reporters. Her lips moved little when she spoke, and her words were sometimes difficult to understand.

The circular scar on her face left by the transplant surgery was still visible, with fine scar lines running from her nose over her cheekbones and down to her jaw, and she seemed to have difficulty closing her mouth.

Physiotherapy should improve this over time, Mrs Dinoire and her doctors said.

Mrs Dinoire recounted how she had lost the lower part of her face last spring after taking medication "to forget" a stressful week.

"When I woke up I tried to light a cigarette and I didn't understand why it wouldn't stay in place between my lips.

"It was then that I saw the pool of blood and my dog next to me. I went to look at myself in the mirror and, horrified, I couldn't believe what I saw.

"Since that day, my life changed," she said, adding that she had spent a month without leaving her bedroom for fear of how others would react when they saw her.

"Every day when I went out I had to face people's stares and their remarks," she said.

Badly disfigured and suffering "psychological and physical pain," she said she had "immediately accepted" the transplant project and "that gave me courage".

She explained that today she felt she had completely "tamed" her new face and claimed she felt no pain. "I can manage to smile, to pull faces," she said. "Since the day of my operation I have had a face like everyone else.

"At the moment I can open my mouth and eat and use my lips and nose. However, I have to continue my exercises and take medication to exercise all my facial muscles," she said.

"I intend to resume my family life and then to pursue a professional activity. In fact, I want to live a normal life again.

"I hope my operation will be able to help some people to live again," she added, after thanking the medical team that performed the surgery.

Mrs Dinoire said she was happy when she looked in the mirror for the first time following the surgery.

The transplant was carried out by a team from University Hospital Centre in Amiens, led by Professor Bernard Duvauchelle, a specialist in facial surgery.

He was working with a team led by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, the head of surgery at Edouard-Heriot Hospital in Lyons.

Prof Dubernard said yesterday that "everything is fine" despite what he described as "an episode of rejection" three weeks after surgery which had since been controlled.

He described Mrs Dinoire's condition as "favourable", but was reluctant to make any future prognosis because of the operation's pioneering nature.

Facial tissue from a woman donor in Lille, who was brain-dead, was used in the operation to repair the severe damage to Mrs Dinoire's face.

Mrs Dinoire yesterday thanked the family of the donor, whose face is now part of hers.

"I very much wish to pay homage to this family and to say I am sorry for the harassment to which they were subjected," she said.

"Despite their unhappiness and their grief, they agreed to give a second life to people in distress. Thanks to them a door into the future is opening for me and for others," she added.

Mrs Dinoire will continue treatment and exercises to help her regain full use of her facial muscles after the operation, in which surgeons used tissue, muscles, arteries and veins from the dead woman to rebuild her face.

The transplant has given hope to others disfigured by burns or accidents, but it has also raised psychological and ethical issues for the recipient and the donor family.

"I now understand people with a disability," Mrs Dinoire said, expressing hope that her operation could help others.

The news conference coincided with a formal request by her doctors to the French health minister for permission to carry out five more face transplants similar to the one Mrs Dinoire received.

"She is the first, but she is not going to remain unique," said Prof Dubernard.

Doctors have said they cannot rule out rejection of Mrs Dinoire's transplant in the future, but said the use of bone marrow from the donor had helped to reduce such dangers.