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Kid from Zhejiang gets electronic ear surgery in Taipei

“I can hear!”

— Wen-wen, seven-year-old Chinese national fitted with electronic ears

A seven-year-old from China’s Zhejiang Province who came to Taiwan last week to receive “electronic ears” after being diagnosed with large vestibular aqueduct syndrome was overjoyed at her new-found ability to hear when she attended a press conference on Tuesday.

“I can hear!” said the child, identified only as Wen-wen (文文), while hugging her mother at the press conference.

Also present at the conference was 11-year-old San-san (三三), who also traveled from China to Taiwan for surgery at the Cheng Hsin Rehabilitation Medical Center in suburban Taipei.

The two young patients seldom talked to others and could not hear well since birth, said a doctor at the press conference, adding that the situation worsened for Wen-wen after a fall in which she injured her ear.

Chen Kuang-chao (陳光超), director of the otolaryngological department at Cheng Hsin center, said that large vestibular aqueduct syndrome is a connatural disease of one or both ears, often accompanied by sensorineural hearing loss that gradually leads to deafness.

The best way to improve a patient’s hearing is to implant “electronic ears,” Chen said.

“Electronic ear surgery costs 250,000 yuan [US$36,400] in China, a procedure that not only leaves big wounds but also fails to preserve the remnants of an individual’s original listening ability,” Chen said.

“The surgery costs about 220,000 yuan in Taiwan, with more skillful surgeons and preservation of residual hearing,” San-san’s mother said.

Chen said he used minimal invasive surgery on Wen-wen, which did not require shaving the head and left a scar of only about 2.5cm.

Moreover, the technique used in Taiwan takes only three hours, or half the time it takes for conventional surgery, and requires only an overnight hospital stay, Chen said.

He added that he had performed the procedure more than 100 times with no complications.

Chen said the two children were so curious and excited by their new sense that they stomped on the ground and banged the lids of trash cans, creating a lot of noises they had never been able to clearly hear before.
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