Chinese surgeons successfully preserved a woman’s completely avulsed ear by temporarily grafting it onto her foot, later reattaching it to her head after definitive reconstruction. The patient lost her ear in an industrial accident in April and sustained extensive injuries to the scalp, neck, and face. On arrival, surgeons attempted conventional scalp reconstruction, but the severity of tissue and vascular damage led to failure.
Immediate ear reattachment was not possible because the cranial tissues required time to recover. To maintain the viability of the ear, the microsurgery team at Shandong Provincial Hospital in Jinan grafted it onto the dorsum of the patient’s foot. According to deputy director Qiu Shenqiang, the arterial and venous calibers in the foot closely matched those of the ear, and the thin skin and soft tissue resembled that of the scalp, minimizing future contour…
