First successful penile transplantation

Limb of a deceased: first successful penile transplantation

03/15/2015

In South Africa, a penis has been successfully transplanted for the first time. A 21-year-old who lost his limb after circumcision has received the organ of a deceased donor. The doctors explained that the "patient is well and his member fully functional".

Transplanted limb is fully functional
In South Africa, doctors claim to have successfully transplanted a penis for the first time. According to a news agency AFP, the Cape Town doctors said that the 21-year-old recipient was "well and the organ fully functional three months after the operation in mid-December." "We've proven that it's possible - we can give someone an organ that's as good as what they had," said Surgeon Frank Graewe of Stellenbosch University.

Doctors surprised by the success of the operation
Three years ago the patient had been amputated after an infection due to a poorly performed circumcision during an initiation rite of the penis. He was reportedly given the organ of a deceased donor in a nine-hour operation at the Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town. As the urologist Andre van der Merwe announced, "the doctors themselves are surprised by the great success of the operation". In fact, it has been "the goal of the physicians that the transplanted limb will be fully functional in two years".

Great need for penile transplants in South Africa
The doctors are now planning nine more such operations for the near future. Van der Merwe said that the need for penile transplants in South Africa is "greater than anywhere else in the world". This is because there are frequent infections in the common initiation rites in the region, which includes a traditional circumcision to the loss of the organ. Between 2008 and 2013, a total of 486 boys and young men died as a result of complications in these rites, according to an investigative report.

Pioneer role in transplant surgery
For a long time South Africa had a pioneering role in transplant surgery. Chris Barnard made the world's first heart transplant in Cape Town in 1967. In China, doctors had already done a penile transplant in 2006. Surgery was a surgical success, but the doctors had to remove the organ from the man after two weeks because of "serious psychological problems for the patient and his wife." Another medical sensation related to the male genitalia was reported worldwide last month. According to the data, in the US a penis reduction was performed in a 17-year-old teenager. As it was said, in particular, the circumference of the limb prevented the adolescent from having sexual intercourse. (Ad)