Face transplants promised hope. Patients were put through the unthinkable

"In the early hours of 28 May 2005, Isabelle Dinoire woke up in a pool of blood. After fighting with her family the night before, she turned to alcohol and sleeping tablets to forget, she later said. Reaching for a cigarette out of habit, she realized she couldn't hold it between her lips. She understood something was wrong. Isabelle crawled to the bedroom mirror. In shock, she stared at her reflection:"

"On 27 November 2005, Isabelle received the world's first face transplant at University Hospital, CHU Amiens-Picardie, in northern France. The surgery was part of an emerging field called vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA), that transplants parts of the body as a unit: skin, muscle, bone and nerves. Two teams, overseen by Bernard Devauchelle, Sylvie Testelin and Jean-Michel Dubernard, grafted a donor's nose, lips and chin onto Isabelle's skull."

A severe facial mauling left a woman with her nose, lips and parts of her cheeks destroyed, prompting urgent reconstructive needs. Surgeons performed a pioneering vascularized composite allotransplantation to graft a donor's nose, lips and chin onto the patient. The operation involved meticulous attachment of sensory and motor nerves, arteries and veins, required a team of roughly 50 people and lasted more than 15 hours. Postoperatively the recipient demonstrated restored speech and ability to drink, signaling functional and aesthetic recovery. The case spurred other teams worldwide to attempt national firsts in face transplantation.

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