14 DAY TRIAL // Face is what physically represents you. In the ID card, you have a picture of your face, not of your arm, a*s or belly. That's why it's hard to imagine the feeling of losing it. This is what happened two years ago to Isabelle Dinoire, a French woman, 38 by then, who had been disfigured by her dog.
She was the first patient in the world to receive a face transplant at Amiens Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Hospital in northern France, on November 27th, 2005, a pioneering operation. Isabelle's nose, lips and chin were replaced with a graft from a brain-dead donor. There were concerns about tissue rejection and this had occurred twice, once in December 2005 and again in June 2006, but both were successfully controlled with immunosuppressant drugs.
"Aesthetically, the transplant has fitted in very well with the shape of her face. People who hadn't seen her before her accident now recognize her, which is very interesting. When she is in a crowd, she doesn't stick out as 'the transplant patient', and this is important. You still see scars, of course. From time to time, there are minor inflammations which occur near wires that lie deep beneath the skin. When she is in a crowd, she doesn't stick out as 'the transplant patient'. But elsewhere, the scar lines have almost completely faded. If she puts on a little bit of makeup, she looks fine", said Jean-Michel Dubernard of Lyon University, leader of the team who operated Dinoire one year ago.
"Facial sensitivity, as far as skin warmth and tactility is concerned, has been restored", said Dinoire in December 2006.
Dinoire received daily psychological counseling for the first month, and followed a regimen of facial exercises. At the beginning, as her lips could not move properly, she had problems with drinking, but these were gone in one year. Because of the same issue, she couldn't pronounce consonants like P and B, but this is not a problem now. 18 months later, Dinoire could even smile completely. She has been pictured without makeup for the first time.
"At present, the patient says she is not afraid of walking in the street or meeting people at a party, and she is very satisfied with the aesthetic and functional results", Dinoire's surgeons wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Her scars are still visible, but makeup can significantly hide them.
"The encouraging 18-month outcomes of face transplantation in our patient suggest that this procedure can offer hope for some patients with severe disfigurement", the doctors wrote.
Now, there are two other cases of face transplant.