Surgeons at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City have transplanted a fully functional nose created via 3D printing for the first time in the U.S. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai surgeons Drs. Tal Dagan and Grigoriy Mashkevich performed the operations on Dallan Jennet, a 14-year-old boy from the Marshall Islands whose face was disfigured after he fell onto a live power line.

Tal Dagan and his patient, Dallan Jennet. Image credit: Mount Sinai Hospital.Tal Dagan and his patient, Dallan Jennet. Image credit: Mount Sinai Hospital. “The procedure is akin to a ‘nose transplant’ in that we were able to replace the nose with a functional implant,” says Dagan. The procedure is noteworthy, he says, because the patient will not have to deal with the usual challenges associated with transplants involving tissue rejection or a lifetime of immunosuppressive therapies.

Dagan and a team from Oxford Performance Materials, an additive manufacturing company, created the 3D-printed facial device that replaced the boy's nose using sample models taken from the noses of his family members to recreate a natural and culturally appropriate graft. The process also allowed the surgeons to rehearse the procedure and create a custom operation to minimize complications.

In June 2015 during a 16-hour procedure, the surgeons used laser-based technology to scan the surface of the patient’s face and visualize the blood vessels feeding his skin. This helped them determine that the skin was healthy enough for reconstruction.

With tissue and blood vessels harvested from Dallan’s thigh, the surgical team removed scar tissue, inserted the graft and reconstructed the skin over the implant. After four additional surgeries and follow-up outpatient exams, the result was a full reconstruction of Dallan’s nose, with his senses of smell and taste restored.

According to the surgeons, the implant is permanent, flexible and will not need to be replaced as Dallan continues to grow.

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