More than a year after undergoing a 14-hour operation to transplant a penis, scrotum, and lower abdominal wall, a severely injured veteran reports that he has regained normal sensation and function of his new body parts.
The young man now has “near-normal” erections, the ability to achieve orgasms, and normal sensation in the shaft and tip of his transplanted penis, according to his medical team at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He urinates while standing up with a “strong stream” and no issues with urgency or straining. (The transplant did not include donor testicles, to avoid the possibility of fathering non-genetically related children.)
The doctors reported the update on their patient November 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The man—who wished to remain anonymous—was the first to undergo such a complex genital transplant and only the third in the world to have a successful penis transplant (a fourth has since been carried out). The transplant repaired a traumatic injury from an improvised explosive device (IED), which destroyed the mans penis and scrotum and caused substantial tissue loss in his lower abdominal wall. It also led to above-knee amputations of both his legs.
A preoperative computed tomographic reconstruction of the extent of the injury in the transplant recipient. A small penile stump is visible, with loss of the lower abdominal wall, the entirety of penile shaft, and the scrotum and testes. Redett, et al. NEJM The graft after explantation from the donor. The graft included the right and left external pudendal artery, a segment of the femoral artery, and the saphenous veins on both sides. Dorsal arteries can be seen on the deep, proximal portion of the penile graft. Redett, et al. NEJM
The transplant of organs and tissues from a closely age-matched donor was an immensely difficult one, requiring surgeons to develop a whole new revascularization technique to ensure a proper blood supply. BuRead More – Source
