We developed a postmortem protocol for temporal bone extraction and dissection in organ donors, enabling atraumatic bilateral temporal bone retrieval within 1-2 h of ischemia, followed by stepwise microsurgical dissection of neurosensory organs....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
No actionable change for clinical practice; this is a laboratory/research methods paper enabling higher-quality postmortem inner-ear tissue collection for basic science.
A reliable, rapid postmortem dissection protocol expands the availability of high-quality human inner-ear tissue for cochlear histology and translational hearing research.
- 01Protocol achieves atraumatic bilateral temporal bone extraction within 1–2 hours of ischemia onset.
- 02Tissue is sourced from consenting organ donors, improving ethical access to human inner-ear specimens.
- 03Rapid extraction preserves tissue integrity critical for histological and molecular analysis.
- 04Method addresses a longstanding bottleneck in human cochlear research.
- 05Published in The Laryngoscope.
Bilateral temporal bone extraction and inner ear dissection can be completed atraumatically within 1–2 hours of ischemia using this protocol.
studysupported- PMID
- 42754930
- DOI
- 10.1002/lary.70925.
- Journal
- The Laryngoscope
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 4
- Population
- Human organ donors from whom temporal bones were harvested postmortem
- Intervention
- Rapid postmortem temporal bone extraction and inner ear dissection protocol
Primary outcomes
Feasibility of bilateral atraumatic retrieval within 1–2 hours of ischemia; Tissue integrity of harvested inner ear structures