The ear seen hanging from "a tenuous pedicle of scalp epidermis measuring only approximately 0.1 × 1.5 cm" (top) and subsequently reattached successfully (bottom) is that of a young woman who arrived in the emergency room at the Sacramento Medical Center of the University of California, Davis, after her dog had taken more than a nip at her ear.
Within a half hour after the injury occurred, replantation began. One-and-one-half hours later, reattachment—by nonmicrosurgical means—was complete, Robert H. Nelson, MD, told an audience at the Third International Symposium on Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of the Head and Neck in New Orleans.
The case was the ninth in a series of ear replantations carried out by this procedure, which was developed by Leslie Bernstein, MD, DDS, chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology at the university.
In this instance, as in the other eight cases, after instituting a regional nerve block, the