The surgery required to “pin back” prominent ears is no easy ride. People need to have a general anaesthetic, and the deep incisions the operation needs can lead to severe complications such as infection. But not for much longer, perhaps.
A cosmetic surgeon tired of the drawbacks to the standard ear correction procedure has developed a slim implant that acts as a brace for prominent ears and forces them to grow into a more “pinned back” shape. Better still, the implant can be inserted with just one small incision under local anaesthetic.
Prominent ears lack a fold around the rim of the ear, making them stick out in a cup shape. To correct this, surgeons either score or stitch the fold into the cartilage of the ear. Both methods require the skin to be stripped from the cartilage, which can lead to infection and scarring.
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“I invented the implant out of frustration with the other techniques,” says Norbert Kang, a plastic surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in London. “They have a complication rate of 60 per cent.”
“I invented the implant out of frustration with the other techniques”
Kang’s technique would require one small cut in the skin at the top of the ear, through which a curved metal sliver 2 centimetres long and half a centimetre wide would be inserted between the skin and the cartilage. The peg pulls the ear into the required shape and is ribbed on one side so that it grips the cartilage and remains firmly in position.
The metal gets its shape-control capabilities from the material it is made from: nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy with so-called “superelastic” shape-memory properties. Currently used to make stents that keep ailing arteries open, the alloy is very flexible when bent, but always returns to its original shape when deformed. This property prevents the peg from becoming misshapen if the ear is knocked.
Kang says the implant could be inserted in 10 minutes by a nurse, and would only require a local anaesthetic, making it cheaper and less stressful than existing methods.
However, the implant is still in the early stages of its development, and David Gault, a plastic surgeon based in London, says he will remain sceptical until the treatment has been fully tested on people. “If we could avoid surgery it’s great, but I don’t believe the ear will be that easy to shape,” he told 91av.
