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A 20-year-old girl has become the first person in the world to undergo a successful ear transplant, with 3D technology.
The patient, known as Alexa from Mexico, was born with the disease microtia, which is a rare defect, which causes the outer part of the ear to be small, shapeless and can also cause hearing problems.
Dr. Arturo Bonilla, an reconstructive ear surgeon in San Antonio, performed the implant operation on a woman by removing half a gram of cartilage from the remnants of her ear and then sent her to 3DBio Therapeutics in Long Island City, Queens, together. with a 3D scan of her healthy ear.
Alexa chondrocytes, which are the cells responsible for cartilage formation, were isolated from the tissue sample and grown into a special cluster of nutrients, turning them into billions of cells. These were inserted into a specialized 3D bio-printer with a syringe and they were turned into a small elongated shape that was a mirror copy of the patient’s healthy ear. The whole printing process took less than 10 minutes.
The crushed form of the ear was then sent to Dr. Bonilla for cold storage and he then implanted the ear under the skin, just above Alexa’s jaw. After the skin was tightened around the implant, the shape of an ear was formed. Alexa said she started to become more aware of her appearance when she became a teenager and that she constantly tried to cover her ear by keeping her hair long, almost always loose. She added that the transplant means she will be able to keep her hair tied even now.
Recall that a man, whose hands remained unusable from scleroderma, took a new life, after what is believed to be the first double hand transplant in the world for this disease. Steven Gallagher was diagnosed with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that causes scars on the skin and internal organs, after he had an unusual rash on the cheeks and nose, about 13 years ago and pain in the right arm./Top Albania Radio
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