A tragic teenage girl who agreed to undergo plastic surgery on a reality TV show so she could return to her family home has died on the operating table.

Katya Badaeva, 17, was badly deformed when she was born and was abandoned by her mother.

Raised in an orphanage in town of Azovsk, in south-western Russia, she ended up appearing on a TV show where she was reunited with her mother, who said she would take her back only if she had an operation to give her a 'normal' face.

Katya Badaeva (pictured before, left, and after, right, one of her operations), 17, was badly deformed when she was born and was abandoned by her mother

Desperate to be part of a family again, she agreed to undergo several operations carried out by plastic surgeon Andrey Ishchenko.

Katya's mother had explained on popular Russian TV Show Pust Govoriat (Let Them Talk) that she lived in a small village, and that locals would not accept her daughter looking as she did.

If she was to have a 'normal family life', she said, Katya would need a 'normal face'.

Dreaming of suddenly having good looks and a family life after her orphanage ordeal, the teenager agreed but never recovered after the latest round of surgery in a clinic in Russian capital Moscow.

The mother said that she had been told after she gave birth that her daughter would not live more than a month, and that was why she had left her at the orphanage.

However, Katya survived and impressed people at the orphanage so much that they tracked down her mother, with the pair eventually appearing on the reality TV show.

Desperate to be part of a family again, she agreed to undergo several operations carried out by plastic surgeon Andrey Ishchenko. Pictured, Katya Badaeva before the operation

Irina Makarova, a clinic spokeswoman, said: 'After the surgery was finished Katya suffered a sudden cardiac arrhythmia and her heart stopped beating'

Reportedly her mother, named as Nadezhda, went on to have three healthy children, all boys.

The young girl had already had several successful surgeries which had significantly altered her appearance.

Irina Makarova, a clinic spokeswoman, said: 'After the surgery was finished Katya suffered a sudden cardiac arrhythmia and her heart stopped beating.

'There were no obvious reasons which could have caused this. Doctors tried to resuscitate her for two and a half hours. The autopsy showed her death was not the doctors' fault.'

The mother said she did not blame the doctors for her daughter's death, saying: 'I can't bring my child back. She underwent so many tests before the surgeries, God probably gave her only that much time.'

The police are carrying out an investigation into the case and a further autopsy is planned.