The French woman who recieved the world's first partial face transplant in a groundbreaking surgery that led to dozens of other successful transplants around the world has died.

The Amiens University Hospital in northern France released a statement after the Le Figaro newspaper published the story.  It said that 49-year old Isabelle Dinoire died in April after a long illness.  But the statement didn't make clear if her illness was related to the transplant, and her family wanted her death kept private.

Ms. Dinoire was severely disfigured in an attack by her pet dog.  In 2005, doctors Bernard Devauchelle and Jean-Michel Dubernard led a 15-hour operation to give her a new nose, chin and lips from a brain-dead female organ donor.  They appeared with her in a news conference in 2006.

"I can open my mouth and eat.  I feel my lips, my nose and my mouth," Ms. Dinoire said at the time.  "I have a face like everyone else," she added, "A door to the future is opening."

There have been nearly 40 face transplant surgeries around the world since 2005 - Dr. Meningaud was involved in seven of France's ten face transplants.  But now he is calling for a pause in the procedure, saying that the surgeries have brought unintended consequences for the patients.  There are psychological difficulties, and problems caused by the anti-rejection drugs that patients must take for the rest of their lives to keep their bodies from rejecting the transplanted tissue.  The drugs can cause cancer, and Le Figaro reported that Dinoire had suffered two cancers linked to the transplant and lost partial use of her transplanted lips last year.

"The results were very good in the medium term, but the long-term results were not so good," Dr. Meningaud commented on Ms. Dinoire's case.  "It's a rather high price to pay for the patient.  It's time to mark a pause," he said.