Up to 60 wounded US soldiers to get penis transplants to help them start families
- Wounded soldier will become first to undergo penis transplant in the US
- Patient lost most of his penis and sustained serious groin injuries
- Injured in a bomb blast, while serving in Afghanistan
- Surgeons hope to perform the op on 60 veterans in the coming months
- Donated organ from deceased man should provide full function
Surgeons are to give 60 soldiers new penises in the first ever transplants of their kind in the US.
The first patient, who has not been identified, lost most of his penis and sustained serious groin injuries in a bomb explosion while he was deployed overseas.
Media reports have suggested he was wounded while serving in Afghanistan.
And now dozens of injured US veterans are to also have the surgery so they can start families.
Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore will perform the surgery on the man - the first transplant of its kind to take place at an American hospital.
Surgeons hope a donated organ from a recently deceased man will provide full function including urination, sensation and sex.
The surgery requires joining nerves and blood vessels under a microscope. Doctors and advocates who work with wounded soldiers note that the loss of the penis is one of the most emotionally traumatic injuries because it affects a sense of identity and manhood, especially for men hoping to become fathers.
'When you meet these guys and you realize what they've given for the country, it makes a lot of sense,' Dr Richard Redett, a plastic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital who will help perform the operation, told Reuters.
The patient, who has not been
identified, lost most of his penis and sustained serious groin injuries
in a bomb explosion while he was deployed overseas. Media reports have
suggested he was wounded while serving in Afghanistan (file image)
The diagram shows
how surgeons in South Africa performed the first successful penis
transplant last year. The nerves of the donated penis were joined to the
recipient's genital region, in a bid to restore function
He
said it is likely the scrotum, part of the abdominal wall, groin tissue
and part of the inner thigh would have to be replaced as well, in many
cases. 'We've sorted out how to take that block of tissue from a
donor and give it to a recipient,' he said. The penis transplant does not involve the testes, where
sperm are produced, so if a man with a transplanted penis does
father a child, the baby would be his genetic offspring, not the
donor's. While for now only wounded veterans are being considered for
penis transplants, the surgery could eventually be performed on
men with birth defects and transgender men and women. The results of the South African transplant offer hope of a success. The 21-year-old patient told the doctors who performed his transplant, in June that he was due to become a father.
The news came six months after the pioneering operation. The
nine-hour operation took place at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town. The
South African patient, who was not named, lost all but a 1cm stump of
his penis three years ago, following a botched circumcision. He was able to resume a sexual relationship with his girlfriend just five weeks after the transplant, doctors said. Professor
Frank Graewe, who took part in the nine-hour surgery on the South
African man, said last March: 'He gets good quality erections,
ejaculates and has frequent sex with his partner.'
Ten
years ago, a man in China received a transplant, but asked surgeons to
remove the donated penis two weeks after the operation.
Surgeons who carried out the first
penis transplant at Tygerberg Hospital in South Africa revealed months
later that their patient was due to become a father
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