Doctors in China have grafted a woman’s torn-off ear onto her foot to keep it alive, before later reattaching it to her head.The woman lost her ear in a workplace accident in April that also caused severe injuries to her scalp, neck and face. According to medical news platform Yixue Jie, also known as Med-J, her ear was completely severed.When the patient was brought to the hospital, the hand, foot and reconstructive microsurgery team first attempted to repair the scalp using standard surgical methods, Qiu Shenqiang, deputy director of the microsurgery unit at Shandong Provincial Hospital in Jinan, said, reported South China Morning Post.However, the damage to the scalp tissue and blood vessels was too severe, and the procedure failed. Doctors were unable to reattach the ear at that stage, as the skull tissue needed time to heal.To keep the ear alive, the medical team decided to graft it onto the top of the woman’s foot. Qiu said the arteries and veins in the foot were of a suitable size and compatible with those of the ear.He added that the skin and soft tissue on the foot are similar in thinness to those on the head, which reduced the need for major adjustments later.
A long and delicate surgery
The initial operation to graft the ear onto the foot took 10 hours. One of the main challenges was reconnecting the ear’s extremely fine blood vessels, which measured only 0.2 to 0.3 millimetres in diameter.Five days later, doctors noticed problems with blood circulation, known as venous reflux. The ear turned a purplish-black colour, putting it at risk.To save it, the team carried out manual bloodletting around 500 times over five days.While monitoring the ear, doctors also worked to restore the woman’s scalp. Skin taken from her stomach was grafted onto her head to repair the damaged area.After months of recovery and reconstruction, the ear was eventually reattached to its original position.
China’s history of unusual reconstructive surgeries
This is not the first time Chinese doctors have used unconventional methods to rebuild damaged body parts.In 2013, a 17-year-old girl named Xu Jianmei received a pioneering face transplant after doctors grew facial tissue on her chest using skin taken from her leg. She had been badly burned in a fire at the age of five and had lost her chin, eyelids and part of her ear.In 2017, doctors grew an artificial ear on a man’s arm for three months before transplanting it onto his head. The man had lost his ear in a traffic accident, and the surrounding skin and blood vessels were too damaged for a standard implant.
