Tissue Engineering: how to grow an ear?
Ear for growth
Roman Fishman, PublicPost based on Johns Hopkins Medicine:
Johns Hopkins Surgeons Use Woman's Own Tissue to Rebuild Ear Lost to CancerDespite the fantastic successes of modern medicine, there are still many opponents to it, with all its stem cells and tissue engineering.
They frighten immature souls with a mass of horror stories, they say, "God forbid, a leg will grow on your head." This is exactly what happened to a patient at the Johns Hopkins University Clinic: an ear grew on her arm. However, the process was completely controlled – so the doctors got a ready organ for transplantation.
And it all started with a banal visit to the doctor, to whom Sherry Walter complained of pain in her left ear. The woman was found to have a basal cell carcinoma – a malignant tumor of the skin epithelium. The metastases managed to penetrate into the ear canal, so the surgeons had to remove not only the outer ear, but also the tonsils, several lymph nodes and even part of the skull bone. And soon Professor Patrick Byrne outlined for the unfortunate the sad prospect of wearing an ear prosthesis: due to the absence of a part of the skull, "the only way to attach the prosthesis can be glue or adhesive tape." "We both agreed that this was not an option," Byrne adds.
However, there was another possibility: to restore the shell with the help of tissue engineering, using cartilage, skin and vessels borrowed from the patient's face and neck. With this, the situation was also not the best, because both Shelly's face and neck were seriously damaged during the operation. And then Dr. Byrne "quite by accident" remembered about an almost fantastic way.
In fact, Byrne's method with his colleagues was thought out in advance, and the doctors were just waiting for a suitable patient on whom it could be tested. According to the plan, the ear can be reconstructed partially with the materials that are available, and then implanted under the skin of the forearm. Here it will be able to live, eat and develop for some time (no, it will not hear anything: in the end it is only an empty auricle), and then the "ripe" ear can be put in place (the main thing in this case is not to confuse and get the left one).
Surprisingly, the woman decided. To begin with, doctors sewed a plastic bag with saline solution under the skin of the hand so that it stretched sufficiently. Only a few weeks later, a partially reconstructed auricle was placed in its place. Four months later, it was removed and sewn to the head. Doctors "connected" the ear to the vascular and nervous system, and then followed long procedures for final shaping. It all ended on October 2: after a series of operations that lasted for Shelly for almost two years, the young ear found itself in its rightful place.
Photo: ADVANCE for Hearing Practice Management
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru09.11.2012