Dallan Jennet received 5 major operation, the first one taking over 16 hours.
Dallas Jennet, a 14-year old from Marshall Island, is now looking forward to a normal life, thanks to a novel transplantation technique that employs 3-D printed body parts. The 14-years old received a 3-D printed nose transplant, after 5 lenghty surgeries, the first one lasting more than 16 hours.
The boy from Marshall Island suffered extensive facial burn after he fell on a live electrical line when he was only 9 years old. The doctors from his hometown, manage to stabilize the boy’s condition, still Jennet’s face remained scarred after the incident.
But, the doctors from Mount Sinai wanted to give the boy an fighting chance and convince both Dallan to undergo an intricate and ample surgery which could improve the boy’s condition. And so, the boy, accompanied by his mother, flew to New York, where Dallan would attend a series of 4 major surgical interventions.
According to his mother’s testimony, Dallan had his first surgery in the first months of 2015. The surgical intervention has been performed by the doctors from the Marshall Islands. In this first stage, the doctors manage to outfit Dallan’s nose area with input expanders. These expanders were placed under Dallan’s skin in order to help the doctors from New York perform the transplant. Basically, Dallan was fitted with a socket for his new nose.
As one would imagine, both the trips and the surgical interventions were expensive. In order to cover all their expenses, Benicia, and NGO from California offered to cover Dallan’s medical and trip expenses.
In order to recreate Dallan’s nose, professors Tal Dagan and Grigoriy Mashkevich formed a collaboration with Oxford Performance Materials. By analyzing the family’s facial profile, the doctors, and the 3-D Printing company, were successful in creating a replica of Dallan’s nose.
But before Jennet could receive his new nose, the doctors had to make some preparations. As stated, the first surgery performed on the young child took almost 16. During this surgical intervention, the physicians from Mount Sinai used laser technology in order to analyze Dallan’s skin.
After scanning his skin, the surgeon proceeded into harvesting blood vessels from Dallan’s thigh, in order to graft them into the new implant. Additional skin grafts were necessary to reconstruct the boy’s nose are. The doctors also managed to remove the remaining scar tissue. After that, the doctors were able to insert the 3-D printed nose and complete the surgery.
According to doctor Dagan, with the 3-D printed nose, the boy is exempt from a lifetime of immunosuppressor drugs. Also, there is no risk of rejection. After the surgery, the boy is doing fine but has a couple of follow-ups to attend to.
Photo credits:www.wikipedia.org
