Patient had “run out of treatment options”

MHH pioneers use of customized implant in external ear canal

For the first time, the Department of Otolaryngology at Hannover Medical School (MHH) has provided an adult patient with a customized implant for the external ear canal. The implant, which is 3D printed, is additionally designed to continuously and locally release an active substance to accelerate healing.

Auditory researcher Yanjing Luo with the ear canal implant in front of MHH.

"In so doing, we have opened up a frontier to a new type of ground-breaking patient care," explains departmental head Professor Thomas Lenarz. MHH reports that this is a world first. Never before has a clinical centre produced an implant adapted to the patient's individual anatomy, the implant having been created using the Desktop Health 3D-Bioplotter® printer and functionalized by adding active substances.

Attempt at personalized treatment on patient unresponsive to other therapy options

The patient now fitted with this implant had suffered from recurrent narrowing of the ear canal, which had been treated surgically several times but without the desired outcome. The implant now specially manufactured enables both stent function and drug delivery. "After only one follow-up, things are already looking very promising," reports Dr Verena Scheper, whose Inner Ear Pharmacology team from the Department of Otolaryngology designed and fabricated the implant. MHH describes this intervention as “an attempt at personalized treatment”, as the patient had run out of conventional treatment options. The costs were met by the Department itself.

World’s largest cochlear-implant programme

MHH’s Department of Otolaryngology is internationally renowned for having, as it itself states, the world's largest cochlear-implant (CI) programme for care of hearing-impaired patients. The first CI surgery was performed here as early as 1984. And 2003 saw the German Hearing Center (DHZ) open here. To date, the Department has fitted more than 11,000 individuals with a cochlear implant. Other major focuses are on provision of hearing aids and their further development, early detection of childhood hearing loss, and the diagnosis and treatment of sensorineural hearing loss, including tinnitus.