Stem Cells and Ear Regeneration

Background: Repair of total human ear loss due to trauma, cancer, or congenital lack of ears is one of the challenging issues in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Reconstruction of the human ear with costal cartilage has been introduced by Tanzer, Brent, Firmin, Nagata, and others but needs two to four sessions of operation and had some morbidity in donor site. Newer techniques focused on using stem cells. The best option for regeneration of ear cartilages is bone marrow stem cells. They can be cultured in chondrogenic media or co-culture with chondrocytes or cultured in a cartilage extracellular matrix or cartilage scaffold. Therefore they can multiply, differentiate, and produce millions of chondrocytes from the patient’s own stem cells. These cells will be seeded over an external or internal framework, and with the help of in vivo culture, a new cartilage with special configuration of ear framework would be regenerated. These frameworks should go under maturation process and can be used as a new ear framework for reconstruction of a missed ear.