After losing her natural nose to cancer, specialists in France grew the
lady a new 3D-printed nose on her forearm.
According to a statement sent to Newsflash on November 8 by the Toulouse
University Hospital in southern France, the patient's nose was "fully
restored using a synthetic graft previously inserted in her forearm."
The procedure was performed at the Toulouse-Oncopole University Cancer
Institute by teams from the Claudius Regaud Institute, Toulouse University
Hospital's ear, nose, and throat department, and cosmetic surgery.
According to the hospital, the procedure was "unprecedented" and "adapted"
based on cutting-edge technology.
"The patient had had radiation and chemotherapy in 2013 for squamous cell
carcinoma of the nasal cavity," they said. She lost a significant portion of
her nose as well as the front of her palate as a consequence of this
procedure.
She struggled with a wearable face prosthetic and an unsuccessful attempt
at reconstructing her nose using skin flaps for more than four years while
living without a nose.
She was then given the option of a custom-made biomaterial nasal
reconstruction after a two-stage surgical operation carried out by Pr Agnes
Dupret-Bories and Dr. Benjamin Vairel.
Biomaterials, according to the hospital, are substances that may be
utilized "for medical reasons to replace a component or a function of an
organ or tissue." They can be synthetic or live.
The medical teams' cooperation with Cerhum, a Belgian maker of medical
equipment that specializes in bone restoration, allowed them to accomplish a
sort of repair that had never been done previously on such a delicate and
poorly vascularized location.
"This new approach also made it feasible to get beyond certain restrictions
that older techniques had to offer."
After employing biomaterial and 3D printing technology to restore the
patient's nose, the hospital declared the transplant a success.
They claimed that after placing the biomaterial in the patient's forearm
and fostering it for two months, they retrieved it and placed it in the
patient's nasal cavity in September 2022.
They claimed that by undergoing microsurgery, they were able to join the
blood vessels and effectively re-vascularize the patient's nasal
cavity.
The unnamed patient is "doing extremely well," according to the hospital,
after spending 10 days in the hospital and taking antibiotics for three
weeks.
