In the Old Testament, Adam’s rib bone becomes the building block for the human race when Eve is created from it. Surgeons at a London hospital created a modern miracle themselves by developing a pair of ears for a young boy who was born with Microtia. They used cartilage from eight of his ribs and shaped it into ears, according to the BBC News story on the procedure.
Kieran Sorkin received a pair of ears at Great Ormond Street Hospital after previously gaining the ability to hear through a hearing aid implant. Although it’s not such a rare occasion to add one ear, two ears is unusual. The procedure is designed to reinforce his confidence.
“If you can change the confidence of a patient at this young age, you can change their whole trajectory in life,” plastic surgeon Neil Bulstrode told BBC News. “You see this when they come back. It’s a huge boost for them.”
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In the years to come, the pediatric innovations in reconstructive surgical technology currently at the experimental stage could be a reality. A 3D printer is helping researchers at Princeton University to combine biological tissues and electronics to create an artificial ear to be even more sensitive than a human ear. A collaboration between Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical College physicians and biomedical engineers has produced artificial ears for children grown in a lab using a combination of 3D printing and cartilage cells supported by collagen. The push is to develop replacement parts for humans that are mostly made of cartilage such as joints, trachea, the nose and ears because it’s an easier process than for a body part that needs to be connected to blood vessels.
