The earlier penis transplants have been reported from South Africa and Massachusetts
The world’s most extensive and complex penile transplant has been reported from the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
According to the New York Times, the operation that happened last month, lasted 14 hours. The patient, an injured US soldier whose genitals had been blown off in a blast, did not want to be identified but is said to be recovering well. The penis, scrotum and a part of the abdominal wall were transplanted from a deceased donor.
Though the most extensive till date, this is by no means the first in the world or even in the United States. The first such transplant was reported from South Africa in 2014. The first on the US has been reported from Massachusetts General Hospital in the May 2018 edition of the Annals of Surgery. It was performed in 2016.
Penis transplantation, they said, represents a new paradigm in restoring anatomic appearance, urine conduit, and sexual function after genitourinary tissue loss. It is a still evolving branch of surgery
Reporting about the process done on a patient of penile cancer, doctors from Massachusetts said: “We have shown that it is feasible to perform penile transplantation with excellent results. Furthermore, this experience demonstrates that penile transplantation can be successfully performed with conventional immunosuppression. We propose that our successful penile transplantation pilot experience represents a proof of concept for an evolution in reconstructive transplantation.”
The authors of the article also wrote that to date only two penile transplants have have been performed in the world. Penis transplantation, they said, represents a new paradigm in restoring anatomic appearance, urine conduit, and sexual function after genitourinary tissue loss. It is a still evolving branch of surgery.
Meanwhile for the Johns Hopkins surgery teams in Baltimore and Boston has spent years practising on cadavers. Dr W P Andrea Lee, chairman or plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins told NYT that the goal of the surgery was to restore a person’s “sense of identity and manhood.”
