Pass the smell test! Woman (50) gets a new nose on her ARM after being devastated by nasal cancer

A mum-of-one who lost her nose to cancer eight years ago has finally got a new one – after it grew on her arm.

The French patient, known only as Carine, had her right nose cut off in 2013 to treat sinus cancer.

While the surgery saved her life, the permanent damage made her too afraid to leave the house and robbed her of her sense of smell.

Before she received cancer treatment, doctors made a custom nose from 3D-printed biomaterials and kept at it until technology caught up with them.

This year, the structure was then implanted under the skin of her forearm, where cells and blood vessels grew inside the device for two months.

Two months later, the “nose” with the blood vessels in it was implanted in her face and then connected to those in her temples.

The patient is delighted with the new nose and says it helps her breathe better and smell her garden. Further surgery will be required to enable feeling in the organ.

It comes after it was revealed in May that a Brit had a new penis transplanted into his genital area after it grew back on his forearm.

It is seen above two months later after being filled with tissue. In a second operation, this nose was then moved from her arm to her nose. The patient says it helps her breathe better and smell her garden again

The photo above shows how the nose transplant was performed in the hospital in France

The custom operation was performed by the Otolaryngology and Cervical Surgery teams of the Toulouse University Hospital and the Claudius Regaud Institute and took place at the Toulouse-Oncopole University Cancer Institute

Carine told 20 Minutes that she can now breathe “a little better” with the new nose.

She added: “I also find my garden’s scents, I can go outside, I come alive again.

“It is a miracle, this biomaterial was my last resort and I applaud the research and work of the doctors who helped me maintain it.

“I have been locked in my house for the past eight years. When you’re sick, you isolate yourself and the face is what you see first.’

The patient was diagnosed with nasal cancer in 2013 and received chemotherapy and radiation therapy to treat it.

It removed the cancer, but also removed most of the patient’s nose.

Doctors initially tried to give her skin grafts to replace the lost tissue, but they died.

They also offered her prosthesis, but the patient struggled to keep it in place.

At this point the surgeons Dr. Agnes Dupret-Bories and Dr. Benjamin Valerie suggested that we try to grow the nose.

They implanted the device on the forearm because the skin here is much thinner, similar to that on the face.

The patient had to make repeated visits to the hospital while the skin was growing to ensure that it was functioning properly and had no damage.

After two months they decided it had grown enough to be moved to their nose.

Once attached, the scientists used a microscope to connect the blood vessels in the device to those on the face.

To replace the lost skin on her forearm, they took a graft from her thighs.

After the procedure, the patient spent ten days in hospital and was given antibiotics – but it was a success.

Dr Dupret-Bories told France3 the patient was “very excited” about the operation.

“It’s a custom biomaterial implant that was basically a scaffold for colonization of the patient’s body,” she said.

“When it came to reconstructing such large parts of the face, there was no solution.

“With this device we hope to be able to produce a satisfactory result in two operations.”

The patient currently has no feeling in the implant, which doctors called aesthetic and social reconstruction.

A third operation would be needed to restore those sensations, they suggested.