Yahoo!7 The patient was hurt in a car crash. Credit: Reuters
Startling images have emerged of a ‘replacement nose’ grown on the forehead of a man.
The patient, identified only as Xiaolian, was involved in a traffic accident 13 months ago in which his nose was damaged, reports Reuters.
After ignoring the damage, the infection corroded the cartilage of the nose making it impossible for surgeons at the Fuzhou hospital in the Fujian province of China to fix.
Instead, they grew a new nose as a replacement.
The new nose is grown by placing a skin tissue expander onto Xiaolian's forehead, cutting it into the shape of a nose and planting a cartilage taken from his ribs.
The surgeons said that the new nose is in good shape and the transplant surgery could be performed soon.
The 22-year-old’s new nose should work as well as his old one, says Dr Patrick Byrne, the director of Facial, Plastic and Reconstruction Surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Centre in the United States.
The new nose, grown by surgeons. Credit: Reuters
“My guess would be that they felt that the tissue in the nose was so damaged they had to use the forehead skin on the interior part of the nose,” Dr Byrne told ABC News.
“It’ll be a real nose and [have a] breathing passage way.
“He should be able to smell, the smell receptors are pretty high in the nose.”
