Man rejects first penis transplant
Sep. 18th, 2006 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wowieI'm on a roll here...
Man rejects first penis transplant
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Monday September 18, 2006
The Guardian
Doctors spent 15 hours attaching a 10cm penis to the 44-year-old patient after the parents of a brain-dead man half his age agreed to donate their son's organ.
The procedure, described in a case study due to appear in the journal European Urology next month, represents a big leap forward in transplant surgery; it required complex microsurgery to connect nerves and tiny blood vessels.
The surgical team claims the operation was a success. After 10 days, tests revealed the organ had a rich blood supply and the man was able to urinate normally.
Doctors have previously succeeded in reuniting men with their sexual organs after traumatic accidents or attacks, but the Guangzhou operation is the first in which a donor penis has successfully been attached to another man.
Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Dr Hu said. An examination of the organ showed no signs of it being rejected by the body.
Jean-Michel Dubernard, the French surgeon who performed the world's first face transplant on a woman who had been attacked by a dog this year, said psychological factors were a serious issue for many patients receiving certain "allografts", or organs from donors. "Psychological consequences of hand and face allografts show that it is not so easy to use and see permanently a dead person's hands, nor is it easy to look in a mirror to see a dead person's face," he wrote in the journal. "Clearly, in the Chinese case the failure at a very early stage was first psychological. It involved the recipient's wife and raised many questions."
In 2001, surgeons were forced to amputate the world's first transplanted hand from Clint Hallam, a 50-year-old New Zealander, who said he wanted the "hideous and withered" hand removed because he had become "mentally detached" from it. The original transplant was conducted by Prof Dubernard's team at the Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyons, who have since performed the world's first double arm transplant.
Andrew George, a transplant expert at Imperial College, London, said: "Doing a penis transplant should be no more complex than anything else. But it takes time for nerve sensations to kick in and it's not clear whether the patient would ever be able to have sex with it. The question is whether it's right to be doing a transplant for what may be seen as cosmetic reasons."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 02:46 pm (UTC)But, I did see the lady who has the new bionic arm, she seemed very happy to be able to do even simple tasks like cutting vegetables.
Poor dude and the penis though....
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 02:58 pm (UTC)Have you heard about the man who got a hand-transplant? The donor was female, and the hand would not let go of the penis after taking a leak...
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:11 pm (UTC)They need to do a press conference on this for all our questions ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:14 pm (UTC)2nd part - too funny!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:18 pm (UTC)I just knew this post was going to get interesting replies ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:54 pm (UTC)My second thought was that the US and the UK could do with dick replacements in the White House and Downing Street...where do we sign up???
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 05:30 pm (UTC)Another two years for the US Replacement!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 12:31 am (UTC)Time to be serious and go make some phonecalls...
no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 07:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 12:33 am (UTC)