LONDON -- A 3-year-old girl who underwent a breakthrough gene therapy treatment to treat profound hearing loss can hear on her own, two years after the treatment.

Opal Sandy made history in 2023 when at 11 months old, she became the youngest patient in the world to have a gene therapy injection to her right ear, a breakthrough treatment for the deafness she was born with due to mutations of the OTOF gene, an inherited condition.

The gene therapy treatment -- a 15-minute procedure during which Opal was under general anesthesia -- delivered a working copy of the OTOF gene into Opal's right cochlea, the hollow and spiral tube in the inner ear.

During the same procedure, done in the United Kingdom, where Opal's family lives, doctors placed a cochlear implant on Opal's left ear.

Today,

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