A South African Surgeon Professor Mashudu Tshifularo, in 2019, made history and became the first in the world to cure a 35-year-old patient’s deafness by using 3D printing technology.
The Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria conducted a middle ear transplant using 3D-printed bones pioneered by Professor Mashudu Tshifularo with the assistance of a number of specialists of the same hospital.
The groundbreaking procedure was performed using 3D printing technology to reconstruct the broken bones of the patient’s middle ear and the surgery is being hailed as the first long-term solution to conductive hearing loss.
Patients of all ages will be able to safely undergo this pioneering procedure, even newborn babies. This unique procedure can effectively cure patients of a kind of deafness caused by inner ear damage or infections contracted from birth defects or metabolic diseases.
The patient who underwent the successful transplant was a 35-year-old male who had lost his hearing due to a car accident that severely damaged the inside of his ear. Due to the nature of the patient’s injuries, the operation lasted for roughly one and a half hours.
The African Giant Mashudu has been studying conductive hearing loss for a decade and more recently in the last two years looking into the use of 3D printing technology to scan and rebuild damaged areas of the ear, including some of the smallest bones in the body.
“By replacing only the ossicles that aren’t functioning properly, the procedure carries significantly less risk than known prostheses and their associated surgical procedures. We will use titanium for this procedure, which is biocompatible. We use an endoscope to do the replacement, so the transplant is expected to be quick, with minimal scarring. 3D technology is allowing us to do things we never thought we could,” says Prof Tshifularo, who is head of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology (Ear, Nose and Throat) at UP. “But I need sponsors and funding for this invention to take off the ground.”
“As a Department of Health, we shall do everything in our power to assist and mobilize resources to make sure that Prof. Tshifularo gets all the help he needs for this far reaching innovation”, said Minister Motsoaledi. The Minister also calls upon donors and development partners, especially in the business community, in South Africa to support this scientific breakthrough.
