Doctors in Israel Perform Unique Surgery to Reconstruct Severed Ear

In a show of medical innovation in Israel, an experimental technique was used by doctors working at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center for replacing a patient’s ear that had been severed in an accident at the workplace. The hospital stated on Sunday that a wood pallet had fallen on the carpentry shop employee and the 55 year old had come to the emergency room at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center because the upper half of his ear had been sliced off. The man stated that he had not felt the ear was missing at first and had assumed it was just a bleeding cut. He had taken a rag and pressed down on his ear for putting a stop to the bleeding. 

He only understood the complete extent of the trauma after he arrived at the emergency room. That’s when he came to know that his ear had been cut in half. He had immediately contacted the carpentry shop owner to bring the missing half of his ear to the hospital. Even though it had taken a while, they were able to find the missing half. Initially, the emergency physicians had attempted to use conventional methods for stitching half of the ear back but had discovered that the ear could not be saved because of the lack of blood supply.

The doctors at the hospital’s plastic surgery department had decided to switch course and perform reconstructive surgery that utilizes advanced technology for rebuilding a detached body part. Shaare Zedek’s Department of Plastic Surgery’s director, Dr. Yoav Gronovich, had performed the surgery, along with a team of doctors from the department. He stated that they had considered it a severe trauma case and treated it accordingly. Gronovich stated that there were extremely low chances of returning the detached piece of ear to its place. 

He disclosed that they had dealt with a lot of complications while trying to replace the missing part of the ear, which had ranged from the aesthetic to the functional. Eventually, they had molded out a cartilage replacement made from special material and had then adapted it for matching the size of the healthy ear. They had used tissue that was transferred from the skin and scalp of the patient. Gronovich stated that after they had been unsuccessful in absorbing the detached piece, they had decided to do a complex reconstruction, which uses an alloplastic component.

This serves as the basis for cartilage replacement and reconstruction. He disclosed that the primary benefit of the material is that it can be fitted with the opposite ear perfectly. The operation had turned out to be successful and the doctor said that there was a strong possibility that the patient would be able to get the full functionality of their ear. He said that the employee would be able to make a full recovery and could return to his routine life despite the injury, and would also be able to get a good aesthetic result.