3D-Printed Nose Attached to Forearm To Grow Blood Vessels Before Moving It to Patient’s Face in 6-Hour Microsurgery

A woman who lost her nose due to cancer could have a new one using 3D printing. However, the process took a while because surgeons had to attach the 3D-printed nose to her forearm before moving it to her face.

3D-Printed Nose

Blood arteries are too small and intricate to be weaved into the 3D-printed construction, even though the customized nose was created nearly entirely in a lab. Surgeons joined the nose to the forearm, a body part with many blood vessels, to provide a much-needed blood supply. It took two months for the implant to organically colonize with microscopic blood arteries from the patient's forearm.

The nose was transferred to the woman's face after a six-hour microsurgery that aimed to gently connect its new blood vessels to the patient's temple. The patient's skin and cartilage were then removed and used to add detail to the structure.

Surgeons at the Toulouse University Cancer Institute in France reported that their patient was "doing very well" in November of 2022, 10 days after being admitted to the hospital and three weeks after starting antibiotics.

At the end of 2022, the patient said she was "completely overwhelmed" when she woke up the following day. She hadn't been out for a decade, but she and her husband planned to dine out.

Agnès Dupret-Bories, one of the case's lead surgeons, was motivated to attempt implanting a 3D-printed nose after speaking with a doctoral student in Belgium a few years ago. The student was a biomaterials scientist who had previously examined biosynthetic cheekbone implants while employed by Cerhum, a 3D printing business.

Dupret-Bories and her colleague Benjamin Vairel employed hydroxyapatite, a natural mineral that aids in tooth and bone formation, to print a replica nose in 2021 with the aid of Cerhum.

A translation of a Facebook post from the Hospital Center University De Toulouse announced that the transplant was a success.

The patient's nose has returned after nine years and several unsuccessful nasal reconstruction attempts. She allegedly has the best sense of smell right now.

Officials from the hospital said this type of reconstruction had never before been done on such a delicate and poorly vascularized location.

3D Printing in Medicine

3D printing technology has been incorporated in the field of medicine. A 3D-printed heart could be the solution for those waiting for an organ for heart implants.

Using 3D printing technology, MIT engineers assisted doctors in addressing patients' needs for a particular heart structure and function. They created a unique robotic heart from photographs of a patient's heart and engineered it to function like it.

The study's co-author, Ellen Roche, said the new research was very hopeful because it successfully 3D-printed the heart's structure and mimicked its mechanics and physiology. The artificial heart was 3D manufactured to match the patient's pressures and flows.

Check out more news and information on Bioprinting in Science Times.