Thanks to medical advances and science, it is now possible for the body to aid in the regeneration of certain body parts. In 2016, Army Pvt. Shamika Burrage was involved in an auto accident that resulted in the loss of her right ear. She could still hear but without the funneling accoutrement of the exterior ear, Burrage did not get the best quality.
Live Science Surgeons at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas decided to try a new procedure called prelaminated forearm free flap surgery. What does the forearm have to do with the ear you ask? Well, the arm was used as a petri-dish of sort to grow tissue and blood vessels around a cartilage reconstruction of Burrage’s right ear that was planted subcutaneously. The procedure has been used on thousands of civilians, but the army private is the first military person to receive one. The first step, writes Live Science, was creating a mold of the new prosthetic ear using some of the Burrage’s cartilage. The cartilage is then shaped, often with the help of a 3D-printed mold, and then implanted under a flap of skin cut open on the patient’s forearm.
CBS News Since the cartilage comes from the patient, there is no rejection and the skin and blood vessels will begin to grow around the mold. After a few months of growth, the new body part is removed and attached to where it belongs. The replacement surgery is usually followed by many months of healing. Lt. Col. Owen Johnson III, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at William Beaumont Medical Center, told Live Science: “The whole goal is, by the time she’s done with all this, it looks good, it’s sensate and in five years if somebody doesn’t know her they won’t notice,” said in the statement. “As a young active-duty soldier, they deserve the best reconstruction they can get.” “[The ear] will have fresh arteries, fresh veins and even a fresh nerve so she’ll be able to feel it,” Johnson said. In addition, Burrage will even be able to hear out of it, because surgeons were able to reopen her ear canal following the trauma of her accident. Live Science notes: “While this sort of transplant may be a first for the Army, similar operations have been performed successfully on civilians around the world. In 2017, a team of Chinese plastic surgeons led by Dr. Guo Shuzhong completed a similar surgery on a man who lost his ear during a traffic accident. (The forearm-ear transplant took about 7 hours to complete.) Guo told the Daily Mail that he and his team preform similar procedures on about 500 children each year.” And then there’s this guy, a performance artist who grew an ear on his own forearm to make a statement:
What do you think?
Leave a comment on our Facebook Page