03/01/2026
Chinese surgeons saved a woman's ear by grafting it onto her foot for five months before successfully reattaching it to her head.
When a factory worker named Sun suffered a catastrophic industrial accident that tore away her scalp and severed her ear, the extensive vascular damage made immediate reattachment impossible. To save the organ, a microsurgery team at Shandong Provincial Hospital, led by Dr. Qiu Shenqiang, performed a high-stakes 'heterotopic graft.' The surgeons attached the severed ear to the top of the woman’s foot, choosing the site because its blood vessels closely match the size and structure of those in the ear. This radical approach allowed the delicate tissue—reconnected via vessels as thin as 0.2 millimeters—to stay alive while the patient’s primary injuries healed.
The preservation process was a technical marathon, requiring nearly 500 individual manual bloodletting interventions over five days to maintain healthy circulation when the ear began to darken. While the ear was maintained on her foot, surgeons reconstructed the woman’s scalp and neck using skin grafts from her abdomen. Five months later, once the swelling subsided and the blood supply stabilized, the team successfully performed a final six-hour surgery to return the ear to its original position. The patient has since been discharged with her facial structure and tissue function largely restored, marking a historic milestone in reconstructive microsurgery.
source: Jedikovska, G. (2025, December 26). World-first: Chinese surgeons preserve woman’s torn-off ear by grafting it onto her foot. Interesting Engineering.
