Titanium Helps Artificial Ears Maintain Structure for a long Time, Researchers Find

Titanium helps new artificial ear look and behave like a real human ear, according to researchers.

The ear was developed by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital who used a 3D model of the ear and created a basic ear structure of titanium wires. They then used collagen from cows and ear cartilage cells from sheep to mold the structure of the ear. These ears were then grown on backs of male nude rats.

Researchers found that the ears that had a titanium wire embedded in them, maintained their shape even after three months while those without the wire did not.

"This is the first demonstration of a full-size human ear that maintains shape and flexibility after 3 months," Dr Thomas Cervantes, lead author of the study said.

"Shape and flexibility are key; tissue engineered constructs tend to distort in shape during growth, which is obviously a problem for the ear, because we are aiming to recreate a very specific shape," Cervantes added in a news release.

The study," Design of composite scaffolds and 3D shape analysis for tissue engineered ear," is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.  

Scientists said that the ears suffered loss of shape while they were implanted on the backs of rats. After removal, the ear with titanium wire maintained their shape and resembled a human ear while the ears without the wire lost their shape by 12 weeks.

Artificial ears that are currently created don't look realistic enough as they are made of a person's ribs. The process was time-consuming and didn't yield expected results.

"For something like the ear where it's very cosmetic in nature, having a proper shape is one of the most important requirements. We wouldn't want it to look like a shriveled nub," Cervantes, who is now at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, told LiveScience.

The technology also allows scientists to build ears that are customized to each patient's needs, Cervantes said.