Recipient of world's first face transplant, Isabelle Denoir, has died, according to French doctors.

In a statement distributed by the hospital, which in November 2005 was carried out the pioneering procedure said that the woman died on April 22 of 2016, "after a long illness."

She was 49 years old. The delay in the announcement of her death was explained in a statement the hospital.
"In accordance with the will of her relatives, the obituary was not published in the press, to protect his legitimate privacy at this painful time," the statement said.

Although the hospital does not provide any information about the cause of death Denoir, French media reported that she went complications after the last operation.

Dinair suffered from rejection of transplants and lost part of his lip, said in vtronic Le Figaro - a famous French newspaper. Heavy treatment of anti-rejection contributed to the emergence of two types of cancer. Surgeons have performed the operation when Denoir was 38 years old, after her face was savaged by a dog.

French surgeons Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard and Dr. Bernard Devauchelle decided to conduct an operation to sew the nose, chin and mouth from the donor, and abandoned more traditional ways of reconstructive surgery.

Denoir got the lower part of the face, taken from a woman who committed suicide.
A year after the procedure, the woman said: "It may be a person someone else, but when I look in the mirror, I see myself." The surgeons opened the way for other transplants involving various combinations of facial parts, implemented in six other countries, including the United States.
sections: Society, World News