An ear for Private Barrage

A new auricle was grown by an American army surgeon on the forearm of a serviceman

Marina Astvatsaturyan, Echo of Moscow

Private Shamika Burrage lost the outer part of her ear due to a car accident; the graft was grown under the skin of the victim's hand from her own cartilage, the press service of the US Army reports.

An army plastic surgeon performed a successful operation to restore the ear with a transplant of a grown new auricle to the place of an amputated one more than a year ago. "By the end of the rehabilitation process, the renewed ear will receive fresh arteries, fresh veins and even fresh nerves, so that Shamika will be able to feel her new auricle," the publication reports The Scientist with reference to the statement of Owen Johnson, chief plastic surgeon of the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.

Although such an operation is not performed for the first time – in 2012, the ear of an oncological patient was returned in a similar way – the complete restoration of the auricle remains the most difficult ear reconstruction operation.

The accident, in which 19-year-old Barraj suffered compression injuries to the spine, severe head contusions and damage to the left auricle, requiring her amputation, happened in 2016. To reconstruct the ear, military surgeons took cartilage tissue from the chest of Barraj and gave it the necessary shape. Then this material was placed in the patient's forearm under the skin, where the cartilage was supposed to continue growing and become covered with its own skin. After that, the graft was removed from the arm and transplanted onto the head.

According to Johnson, in five years the traces of the operation will be completely invisible. As the patient herself says, she hears normally, Dr. Johnson opened the overgrown auditory canal. However, Private Barraj will have another operation: this is the removal of scar tissue on the head. 

As noted in the military report, at first Barraj, having learned about the details of the reconstruction, did not want to hear about it, she was afraid. But then, on reflection, she came to the conclusion that a real, albeit grown, ear is better than a prosthetic one, although surgery to restore it is fraught with more scars than prosthetics.

Photos from the website army.mil – VM

To reduce the number of visible postoperative scars, Johnson peeled off a loose skin flap on the patient's forearm, into which he placed cartilage tissue, and then returned it back for neovascularization, that is, germination of this area of the arm with new blood vessels and nerves.

"All plastic surgery is rooted in injuries on the battlefield, and every significant breakthrough in plastic surgery is associated with military operations," Johnson said. And although the plastic reconstruction of the auricle of an ordinary American army has nothing to do with the war, it became possible thanks to the experience of military doctors. 

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru