THE woman who received the world’s first partial face transplant this week is eating, drinking and talking and is happy with her new features, her surgeons said yesterday.
When Isabelle Dinoire woke up 24 hours after the pioneering operation, she touched the skin that had been grafted around her nose, mouth and chin, looked at herself in a mirror and said: “Merci”, according to Bernard Devauchelle, who led the medical team.
Professor Devauchelle, head of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery at Amiens University Hospital in northern France, told a press conference that the results had exceeded his expectations.
“She does not look as though she had a graft,” he said. “She just looks as though she has a wound.” Matching the skin colour and texture of the donor and recipient had also “surpassed our hopes”, the surgeon added.
Mme Dinoire, 38, a divorced mother of two teenage girls from Valenciennes, was severely disfigured in an attack by her labrador dog in May. It left her unable to talk, chew or drink. The dog, called Tania, was later put down, against the woman’s wishes.
“She doesn’t blame the dog,” Dr Sylvie Testelin, one of her surgeons, said. “The dog liked her. He tried to wake her up, or whatever. It was no more than an accident.”
Yesterday her daughter Lucie, 17, said that the attack came after her mother tried to commit suicide.
This cast doubt on a key aspect of the medical dossier: that the woman had the necessary psychological strength to cope with both a new face and a high-profile role in a surgical breakthrough.
Source
When Isabelle Dinoire woke up 24 hours after the pioneering operation, she touched the skin that had been grafted around her nose, mouth and chin, looked at herself in a mirror and said: “Merci”, according to Bernard Devauchelle, who led the medical team.
Professor Devauchelle, head of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery at Amiens University Hospital in northern France, told a press conference that the results had exceeded his expectations.
“She does not look as though she had a graft,” he said. “She just looks as though she has a wound.” Matching the skin colour and texture of the donor and recipient had also “surpassed our hopes”, the surgeon added.
Mme Dinoire, 38, a divorced mother of two teenage girls from Valenciennes, was severely disfigured in an attack by her labrador dog in May. It left her unable to talk, chew or drink. The dog, called Tania, was later put down, against the woman’s wishes.
“She doesn’t blame the dog,” Dr Sylvie Testelin, one of her surgeons, said. “The dog liked her. He tried to wake her up, or whatever. It was no more than an accident.”
Yesterday her daughter Lucie, 17, said that the attack came after her mother tried to commit suicide.
This cast doubt on a key aspect of the medical dossier: that the woman had the necessary psychological strength to cope with both a new face and a high-profile role in a surgical breakthrough.
Source