Ear reconstruction surgery (Graphic Photos)

ear transplant, sherrie winters, johns hopkins — Johns Hopkins University

A team of surgeons at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore have successfully implanted a new ear on a woman who lost one due to skin cancer.

This was no simple transplant - doctors had to build her ear using cartilage pulled from other parts of her body, then surgically implanted it on her arm to allow it to grow skin before re-attaching it to her head.

This image from Johns Hopkins University Hospital shows an ear made of cartilage that is transplanted under the forearm of a 42-year-old woman to allow it to grow skin and get nourished by blood vessels

Sherrie Walter, a 42-year-old retail sales manager from Bel Air, Md., underwent the painstaking series of operations that began in January 2011 and ended with a new ear by September 2012. She had been diagnosed with an aggressive kind of basal cell carcinoma, the most common type of skin cancer in the United States.

She was first diagnosed in 2008 and had intense radiation therapy and regular biopsies, but in 2010 she saw some blood in her left ear and learned her cancer returned. The cancer had also spread to nearby parts of her skull and salivary glands, so she needed her ear and other surrounding head, neck, gland, lymph and skull tissues removed to save her life.

In what's considered one of the most complicated ear reconstructions ever, doctors removed pieces of her rib cartilage to assemble the new ear structure.

The skinless structure was then surgically implanted under her forearm skin for four months, to allow it to stretch and grow skin and be nourished by the forearm's blood vessels. This image shows a mold that was implanted under Walter's forearm to stretch out the skin before the new ear was implanted.

The ear about to be removed.

An alternate view of the growing ear. Doctors wanted it to gain nourishment from blood vessels under the forearm skin, which would become the skin of the ear.

Walter's surgeon Dr. Patrick Byrne, associate professor in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, then surgically removed the ear from Walter's arm, and connected it to blood vessels in the head and began to sculpt it to look like a functioning ear. This image shows the outlines where the doctors planned to reattach the ear.

Walter's other ear is shown during surgery.

An image of the ear prior to removal.

Here is Walter once the new ear was attached. She still has two more minor surgeries to go, but doctors hope the ear will last for decades.

Another surgery will take place to make a hole in her ear that will lead to hear ear canal. A special hearing aid allows her to hear from her left side.

Walter now warns people about the dangers of skin cancer. "It's a cliche but use the sunscreen and if you are not sure about something, get it checked because that's what I didn't do," Walters said.