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Penis Transplant to Become a Reality Soon in the United States

by Reshma Anand on Dec 7 2015 4:06 PM

Penis Transplant to Become a Reality Soon in the United States
It’s well known that doctors have already initiated the process of uterine transplants in women with a history of miscarriages or infertility. Then why not men reap the same benefits?
Doctors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, New York have initiated the process of penis transplants in men who had been injured in bomb blasts.

In a few months, a young soldier with a horrific injury from a bomb blast in Afghanistan will undergo this operation. This penis transplant is said to be the first of its kind in the United States.

Surgeons claimed that many soldiers are getting affected with genitourinary injuries due to the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Therefore, this penis transplant may turn as a boon for the affected soldiers to make them lead a normal life.

“These genitourinary injuries are not things we hear about or read about very often. I think one would agree it is as devastating as anything that our wounded warriors suffer, for a young man to come home in his early 20s with the pelvic area completely destroyed,” said Dr. W. P. Andrew Lee, chairman of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins.

So far, only two other penis transplants have been performed globally: a failed one in China in 2006 and a successful one in South Africa last year. This surgery is an experimental one and the organ will come from a deceased donor.

The surgeons in the Johns Hopkins University will monitor the results and decide whether to make the operation a standard treatment in the near future.

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During the transplanation, only penis will be transplanted, not the testes, where sperm are produced. So if a transplant recipient does become a father, the child will be his own genetically, not the offspring of the donor. Men who have lost testicles completely may still be able to have penis transplants, but they will not be able to have biological children.

Source-Medindia


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