An experimental surgery offered a French woman a second chance at life. Here's what happened next.
In 2005, while experiencing depression, Isabelle Dinoire overdosed on sleeping pills and passed
out. Although the pills did not kill Dinoire, the incident did land her in the hospital
with horrific injuries. While she was out cold, Dinoire's pet dog destroyed a chunk of her face,
leaving her skull exposed after chewing off her mouth and nose. Dinoire awoke surrounded by her
own blood. She only realized what had happened after she went to light a cigarette and could
not hold it in her mouth. She was left with what she referred to as the face of a monster.
But Dinoire was offered an unexpected lifeline — a radical surgery that had
never been attempted before. After French authorities granted them permission,
French surgeons gave Dinoire a partial face transplant — the first in history.
The surgery was groundbreaking and has been attempted many times since. However,
the psychological impact of the experimental surgery would mark Dinoire for the rest of
her life, and the effects of the medicines on Dinoire's body would eventually cause her death.
"In a quiet, unassuming sort of way, Isabelle Dinoire made history."
Plastic surgery, including facial reconstruction, has been around for centuries, but traditionally,
a patient's own skin and tissue are used to rebuild damaged facial features.
Skin grafts, for example, were invented thousands of years ago in ancient India. By World War I,
the need for plastic surgery due to the use of modern weaponry led to
major improvements in these types of procedures.
By the early 2000s, ordinary skin grafts had become quite sophisticated,
which has led many people to question why doctors carried out a face transplant on Isabelle Dinoire
in the first place. When doctors opted to use somebody else's face for the surgery,
they ran a high risk that the body would reject the transplant. Dinoire was warned
prior to the dangerous surgery that there was only a 33% chance it would actually work.
The face transplant procedure was carried out in a hurry with limited discussion due to doctors'
fears about scarring should they delay. According to the BBC, after 15 hours, the operation was
completed and deemed a success. When she caught sight of her new face in the mirror, Dinoire,
who was initially unable to speak, passed her doctors a note that simply said, "Thank you."
After the operation, Dinoire looked almost normal, and she told reporters that she was
hugely grateful for the surgery. She quickly gained control of the muscles in her new face,
learning to eat and speak again after practicing in front of a mirror. Dinoire later shared her
experiences with a biographer in a book entitled Isabelle's Kiss.
In the aftermath of the operation, some people voiced their concerns that the
procedure was unethical, arguing that Dinoire was clearly psychologically unwell and was
therefore not an ideal candidate. The doctors involved responded that Dinoire's case was
so bad that it warranted radical treatment. However, the face transplant ultimately had
some eerie consequences for the patient. Dinoire reported that she initially felt
deeply unsettled when looking at her own face in the mirror after the accident.
She told the BBC,
The donor, like Dinoire, had also attempted suicide. After hanging
herself, the woman was declared brain dead,
and her family gave the hospital permission to use her face for Denoire's operation.
The surreal situation left Denoire with a profound sense of connection with the
donor. Dinoire remarked in interviews that she thought about her frequently, saying in one,
"I want to restart a professional career."
According to the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, news about
Isabelle Dinoire's surgery was unexpectedly leaked by the British press and led to a whirlwind of
unwanted media publicity. She was laughed at by children in the street, and she received a great
deal of unwanted attention that she struggled to deal with. Dinoire would eventually pull through
and learn to accept her new face with courage, but she still had to deal with medical complications.
She was subjected to endless rounds of immunosuppressant drugs and injections
to prevent her body from rejecting the transplant. Following the surgery,
Dinoire suffered from kidney failure and a number of infections, and she started to lose control of
her lips in the lead-up to her death. Ultimately, the impact of the immunosuppressants on her body
caused Dinoire to contract two different forms of cancer. She died at age 49 in 2016.
The hospital that performed Dinoire's surgery released a statement after her
death in which they stated that even with the very best
immuno-therapies, most patients suffer complications from skin transplants.
The incredible difference Dinoire's surgery made to her quality of life
for a brief time has encouraged doctors to keep trying. Face transplants are still rare,
but some progress has been made since Dinoire's surgery. The first full face
transplant took place in 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. The patient had his jaw, cheekbones,
nose, and even his eyelids replaced after shooting himself in the head. The first American patient,
Connie Culp, regained her ability to talk and smell in 2008 after being shot by her husband.
"That's what I said. When I woke up from that surgery,
it's 2009. Everything's gonna be great from here on out."
As of 2021, almost 50 face transplants have been attempted in total with varying
degrees of success. Doctors often struggle to find appropriate donors for the surgery,
which has impeded the progress of this procedure. For a transplant to work,
donors must be of the same blood type, have a similar skin tone, and be of a similar
age. Serious moral and clinical concerns about the surgery also continue to trouble doctors,
but the miraculous benefits of the surgery give many hope for a brighter future.