Mashudu Tshifularo: The First Middle-ear Transplant
Mashudu Tshifularo: The First Middle-ear Transplant
For nearly 430 million globally, hearing loss is a disability. It is expected that by 2050, this number could rise to more than 700 million, according to the World Health Organization.
Prior to 2019, there was no known cure, treatment, or surgical procedure for deafness worldwide. On March 13 of that year, a team of surgeons led by Dr. Mashudu Tshifularo (1964–) using 3D technology, successfully pioneered the transplant of a patient’s middle ear to cure his deafness. The team was from the University of Pretoria Faculty of Health at the Steve Biko Academic hospital in Pretoria, South Africa.
The patient, a 35-year-old man, suffered hearing loss after a car accident caused his inner ear what was thought to have been permanent damage. Tshifularo recreated the bones that make up the inner ear, replacing the damaged ones. The one-and-a-half-hour surgery, performed through endoscopy, was the first-ever transplant of the middle ear that allowed a deaf man to hear.
During Tshifularo’s first doctorate studies, he focused on conductive hearing loss and through this, came up with the idea of using 3D technology to recreate any of the inner ear bones that may be damaged, restoring a patient’s hearing. While studying at the University of Pretoria, he forayed into the use of 3D printing technology.
Today, 3D technology has proved to be extremely useful and needed in the medical industry.
“By replacing only the ossicles (three bones in either middle ear) that aren’t functioning properly, the procedure carries significantly less risk than known prostheses and their associated surgical procedures,” Tshifularo told Radio Nigeria during a post-surgery interview. “The technique could be the cure for hearing defects irrespective of the patient’s age.”
Tshifularo added that the patient’s hearing will be restored immediately, “but since they will be wrapped in bandages, only after two weeks, when they are removed, will they be able to tell the difference.”
Tshifularo grew up as a herdsman in the rural village of Mbahela outside Thohoyandou, in Venda, South Africa. By age 13, he knew he would be a medical doctor. After attending the Mbilwi Secondary School, he began training in medicine at the University of Natal. In 1990, he began working as a practicing physician at Tshilidzini Hospital and in 1995 became a professor and began heading the Department of Otorhinolaryngology (ear, nose and throat) at the University of Pretoria.
In 2000, he was appointed as the youngest and only Black professor of ENT in South Africa. Tshifularo is also the senior pastor and founder of the Christ Revealed Fellowship Church near Pretoria. He has also authored several books in this ministry.
“People like me never arrive,” Tshifularo said. “After climbing one mountain we want to climb another one. If I was easily satisfied, I would have never achieved all the breakthroughs in my life.”
Learn how three young men took their place among the 5% of Black U.S. doctors in “Pulse of Perseverance,” by Pierre Johnson, Maxime Madhere, and Joseph Semien.
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