Boy born without ears gets new pair with rare surgery

A young boy is proudly showing off his new ears after surgery to correct a rare birth defect that meant he wasn’t born with any.

Eight-year-old Elijah Bell underwent five surgeries over four years to create the new pair of ears.

"He loves them; he’s really proud of them and shows his ears off to everyone," Elijah's mother Colleen Bell told Good Morning America.

"It’s strange to people that he’s showing off his ears."

The new ears were developed by a medical team led by director of plastic surgery Dr Ananth Murthy at the Children’s Hospital in Akron, Ohio.

Cartilage was taken from Elijah’s rib cage and put under the skin along his hairline and as the tissue developed the doctors could begin to shape the ears by moulding cut outs and forming the grooves in the tissue.

“Elijah was born with bilateral artesia microtia, a very rare birth defect which affects about 1 in 50,000 people,” Dr Murthy said in a statement.

“By the time you are six to eight years old, your ears are pretty much full grown. Doing the surgeries at that age allows these kids to start their school careers with normal ears.”

Ms Bell said Elijah now had “battle wounds” all over his body.

"He had a skin graft taken from his upper thigh, he has (scars) where they harvested rib cartilage."