Case Report Rehabilitation of a Patient with Auricular Defect- A Prosthodontic Approach

Introduction Loss of an auricle may be due to congenital disease, trauma, or surgical removal of benign or malignant tumors. Auricular defects can be repaired, or reconstructed with autogenous tissue, but this may be unsuitable in many situations. Additionally the use of autogenous tissues requires harvesting a graft there by adding a surgical site. A good alternative is to develop an auricular prosthesis in a material such as room temperature vulcanizing (RTV) silicone rubber. The anatomic morphology of the prosthesis, matching the morphology of the contralateral ear, is currently obtained by different methods:(i) producing a cast of the patient’s contralateral ear by direct impression, and sculpting a mirror pattern corresponding to the missing ear; (ii) producing a cast using the ear of a family member or an individual with compatible ear morphology, and using it for producing the ear prosthesis; (iii) producing a cast of the patient’s contralateral normal ear, and Abstract: Aim: Rehabilitation of the congenitally malformed external ear (microtia) with medical grade silicone in a young 21 year old male. Background: Loss of an auricle may be due to congenital disease, trauma, or surgical removal of benign or malignant tumors. Auricular defects can be repaired, or reconstructed with autogenous tissue, but this has its own limitations and additional surgical co morbidities. A good alternative is to develop an auricular prosthesis. To obtain an accurate morphology of prosthetic ear various methods have been used making use of technology. However, still the most commonly used method involves manual sculpting of the prosthetic ear and final prosthesis fabrication using medical grade silicon. Case Report: Patient presented with microtia involving right ear. Impression of defective and normal ear was made followed by sculpting of defective ear replicating the normal morphologic contours using clay. Room temperature vulcanizing medical grade silicone colour was matched as per the patient’s skin tone and packed in a three piece mold for converting. The fabricated prosthetic ear was retained with an adhesive. The resulting prosthesis had an aesthetically pleasing colour matching and morphology very closely replicating the normal ear. Conclusion: Fabrication of auricular prosthesis using medical grade silicone and its retention using adhesive results in a satisfactory, cost effective and cosmetically acceptable rehabilitation of a patient with auricular defect.