Successful prosthetic salvage of a suboptimal autogenous auricular reconstruction with digital technologies: A report of 3 challenging treatments

The surgical reconstruction of congenitally missing or malformed ears is challenging and involves complicated surgeries. Ear shape, position, and skin color will likely be compromised in patients with relative anatomic symmetry, and it is easier to reproduce these features with a prosthesis. This article describes the prosthetic reconstruction of 3 patients who had received failed or suboptimal surgical reconstruction of their missing or deformed ears. Challenging characteristics included limited soft-tissue availability, skeletal hypoplasia with prominent concavity defect, and bilaterally missing ears with abnormally low hairline. Three-dimensional planning using a software program was used to determine the ideal implant locations and mirror the contralateral ear. The mirrored ear was 3-dimensionally printed with a stereolithography printer. The skin color was reproduced digitally by using the Spectromatch Pro system.