Doctors claim first successful penis transplant

South African doctors have achieved what
they call the world's first successful penile transplant
operation.
The nine-hour operation occurred on December 11,
2014, involving a team of doctors at Stellenbosch
University in Cape Town and others from Tygerberg
Hospital.
The young man, whose identity "is being protected
for ethical reasons," has made a full recovery -- a
result which the doctors did not expect to occur until
about December 2016. The recovery includes,
"restoration of all the patient's urinary and
reproductive functions," according to a university
press release Friday.
"It's a massive breakthrough. We've proved that it
can be done" said Professor Frank Graewe, head of
the division of plastic reconstructive surgery at
Stellenbosch University. "We can give someone an
organ that is just as good as the one that he had."
The patient's penis was amputated after
complications arose from a traditional circumcision,
which was performed during a coming of age
ceremony. Such initiation practices are common in
African nations, but have increasingly come under
scrutiny for risk of complications.
Doctors used techniques developed, in part, for the
world's first facial transplant. Dr. André van der
Merwe, the head of the team of doctors said, "We
used the same type of microscopic surgery to
connect small blood vessels and nerves, and the
psychological evaluation of patients was also similar."
Psychological factors are important for the success of
any transplant operation.
Dr. John Robinson, professor of psychiatry and
surgery at Howard University, told CNN, "The anxiety
of waiting for a transplant creates a lot of anxiety
and tension. Once you get the transplant, the anxiety
of rejection keeps people pretty nervous."
This isn't the first penile transplant. Doctors in China
performed an unsuccessful transplant in 2006 . That
patient rejected the transplant due to "a severe
psychological problem," and had it removed, though
no medical rejection was found.
"Any type of therapy that returns men to normalcy is
beneficial, but at the same time, we need to keep in
mind the person as a whole," including the personal
and psychological aspects, says Dr. Anthony Atala,
director of the Wake Forest Institute for
Regenerative Medicine and member of the American
Urological Association. "At the same time, it'll be
important to have a follow-up to ensure that we
don't have what happened in China."
In the United States, doctor-performed circumcisions
result in fewer than 2 in 10,000 complications,
including bleeding, infection, and injury to the penis,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Complete statistics are not available on the numbers
of nonmedical circumcisions in Eastern and Southern
Africa, though reports from the World Health
Organization show wide-ranging numbers : as low as
2% in parts of South Africa and up to 35% in Kenya.
The South African doctors celebrated the success of
the procedure, but also recognize the donor who
made it all possible. Van der Merwe said, "The heroes
in all of this for me are the donor, and his family.
They saved the lives of many people because they
donated the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, skin,
corneas, and then the penis."

source: CNN.com