Johns Hopkins Grows New Ear for Patient Who Had Cancer and Had Part of Her Ear and Face Removed–New Ear Grown in Her Arm & Transplanted to Face

This is very cool as the forearm of the patient was used as the area to “plant and grow” her new ear. If you have been reading about regenerative medicine for a while you might remember from about 3 years the mouse that had the human ear growing on it, so it looks as though this has progressed in a very short amount of time to have a human patient who needed her ear to have this surgery. The doctor used cartilage from her rib to create an ear so while it was growing she looked at the ear on her arm. There were several surgical procedures to attach the ear, so out of the arm it came once grown on to where her ear is.

She still has 2 more surgeries to go and the ear should last for a long number of ears. She wears a hearing aid to use the left ear. There’s a link below that shows a number of slides with the growing and removal process of the ear. This is pretty amazing stuff. BD

The discovery of a rapidly-spreading basal cell

cancer in her ear in 2008 required the removal of part of her ear, part of her skull and her left ear canal. But now, in a groundbreaking and complicated set of surgeries, Johns Hopkins doctors have attached a new ear made from Walters’ own tissue.

“We started making jokes just to try to get used to it and I was like, `Can you hear me? Can you hear me?’ said Sherrie’s husband, Damien.

Byrne later surgically attached the ear and its blood vessels. Then surgery Tuesday added shape and detail to the ear.

Click here to see a special slideshow from Johns Hopkins.

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/09/26/hopkins-doctors-give-woman-a-new-ear/