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A woman in France grew a nose on her own arm so that she could have it transplanted on to her own face, after losing a large portion of her own to cancer treatment.
In 2013, the patient from Toulouse was treated for nasal cavity cancer, losing a large part of it during the process.
Since then, she and the doctors treating her have been attempting to grow a nose to do a transplant. She also tried wearing prosthetics, but without success.
But thanks to advancements in medical sciences, she was able to get a custom 3D printed nose made and implanted on her arm. The nose was made from special bio-materials to replace the cartilage on her face.
The replacement nose grew on her forearm for around two months, before ENT specialists used micro-surgery to transplant it from her arm on to her nose.
The team at the Toulouse University Hospital and the Claudius Regaud Institute managed to connect blood vessels in her arm to the ones in her face, and make the surgery a success.
“After 10 days of hospitalisation and three weeks of antibiotics, the patient is doing very well,” according to the hospital.
“This type of reconstruction had never before been performed on such a fragile and poorly vascularised area and was made possible thanks to the collaboration of the medical teams with the company Cerhum, a Belgian manufacturer of medical devices specialising in bone reconstruction,” the hospital said.
“This new technique also makes it possible to overcome certain limitations presented by other techniques.”
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