Tuscon, Ariz. ? The world’s first face transplant recipient is using her new lips to take up smoking again, which doctors fear could interfere with her healing and raise the risk of tissue rejection.

The woman’s French surgeons made their first scientific presentation on the partial face transplant at a medical conference here this week.

The news about her smoking came even as American surgeons said that they were growing more comfortable with the French doctors’ decision to try the operation and that they hoped to offer such transplants to more patients.

The 38-year-old Frenchwoman received a new nose, chin and lips from a brain-dead donor after being mauled by her dog last spring. The woman has been identified only as Isabelle because of French privacy laws.