A British boy who was born without ears has had a pair created from his ribs. Nine-year-old Kieran Sorkin was born deaf with small lobes around the part of his ears.
In a revolutionary surgical procedure , not only have British doctors from London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital created a new pair of ears for Kieran but have also allowed him to hear for the first time in his life with implanted hearing aids.
The procedure began with doctors harvesting rib cartilage from both sides of Kieran’s chest, which he then carefully carved and shaped into frameworks for Kieran’s new ears.
In designing them, doctors used an outline of mum Louise’s ears as a ‘family template’, to make them as close as possible to the ear shape that Kieran might otherwise have inherited from either of his parents.
The team then grafted the ear frameworks onto either side of Kieran’s head, placing them under pockets of skin that were then sucked down with a vacuum so that the skin conformed to the contours of each new ear.
The youngster said he was feeling ‘excited’ ahead the procedure, adding: “I’ve always wanted big ears, and now I’m finally going to have them.”
