US soldier has new ear grown in her arm

Cartilage in the shape of an ear grows in a patient's forearm as part of a total ear reconstruction performed at William Beaumont Army Medical Center. Photo / US Army

Doctors have transplanted a new ear on to a US soldier after growing it in her arm.

Private Shamika Burrage, 21, lost her left ear after suffering head injuries in a car crash in 2016 in Texas.

After being grown on her forearm the new ear was transplanted by plastic surgeons at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.

Cartilage was taken from her rib and shaped into a new ear.

It was then put in her forearm so it could grow new blood vessels and develop feeling.

The soldier said: "I didn't want to do it but gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that it could be a good thing.

"I was going to go with the prosthetic, to avoid more scarring but I wanted a real ear. I was just scared at first but wanted to see what he could do."

The 'Vacanti Mouse' was part of a research project in 1997. Photo / Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication / Massachusetts General Hospital

Lt Col Owen Johnson III, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the army medical centre, said: "The whole goal is by the time she's done with all this, it looks good, it's sensate, and in five years if somebody doesn't know her they won't notice."

Although this was the first time this kind of ear reconstruction was attempted by an Army surgeon, the idea of growing ears is not new to science or medicine.

In the 1990s, a shocking, but real, photo of a mouse with what appeared to be a human ear attached to its back was widely circulated. Now known as the Vacanti Mouse, the critter was part of research studying how feasible it was to grow human ears made of cartilage.

There have also been at least two cases in which doctors performed procedures similar to what Burrage underwent. In 2012, a woman lost her ear to cancer and grew a replacement under her forearm skin, ABC News reported. A few years later, doctors in China attempted to grow an ear in the arm of a man who had been in a car accident, according to China Daily.