STAT July 16, 2021
In the weeks that followed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, doctors saw a flood of patients with a common injury: a ruptured eardrum.
Ruptured eardrums aren’t rare — patients with chronic ear infections or some traumatic injury often develop them. But the influx of cases made it clear to otolaryngologist Aaron Remenschneider, at the time a resident at specialty hospital Massachusetts Eye and Ear, that the standard surgical technique of using a graft to patch up the injury could use an upgrade.
“The techniques used to repair a hole in the eardrum really originated in the 1950s and the materials that are commonly used are taken from the patient,” said Remenschneider, now a physician at UMass Memorial Health.
In 2014,...
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