UPDATE: First Successful Penis Transplant Results in Pregnancy!

Reticently · March 14, 2015, 12:22am

“If the function (both urinary and sexual) and appearance aren’t just right, the recipient has to deal with the implications of having a troublesome foreign object where his penis should be.”

The recipient of the world’s first successful penis transplant will soon be a father, according to the South African outlet News24. His surgeons were recently informed that his girlfriend is pregnant.

The surgery took place just six months ago, three years after the 21-year-old had lost his own organ after infection caused by a botched ceremonial circumcision. Stellenbosch University urologist, Prof. Andre van der Merwe, who led the historic surgical team, explained at a March news conference that South Africa has a particular need for such a surgery: Members of the Xhosa ethnic group often practice adult circumcision, and poor sanitation leads to some 250 amputations every year.

[For victims of botched circumcision ritual, penis transplants offer new hope]

To get permission to use the penis that has now facilitated a pregnancy, van der Merwe’s team had to fashion a new one out of abdominal skin for the deceased donor to be buried with. One day soon, we may not need donors at all: Last year, researchers reported progress in lab-grown penises built with the recipient’s own cells to avoid organ rejection.

[Lab-grown penises are on the horizon, scientists say]

Getting the thing attached successfully was quite the feat, too. From an earlier post:
It's no small thing to reattach any organ, and sexual organs have added psychological implications. If the function (both urinary and sexual) and appearance aren't just right, the recipient has to deal with the implications of having a troublesome foreign object where his penis should be.

Even if everything is working physically, the psychological trauma can sometimes be too much to bear. That's what happened to the Chinese patient who could have been the first successful recipient: In 2006, 10 days after a physically successful surgery, the man asked doctors to remove his new organ.
But the patient is reportedly doing well, and the organ is apparently functioning well enough for reproductive purposes. Van der Merwe and his team continue to monitor the young man, and may attempt further surgery to improve upon the penis’s functionality sometime in the next few months.

Less than a year ago, doctors reported that a woman with a transplanted uterus had given birth to a healthy baby, and that other patients who’d had the same procedure were expected to follow suit shortly. And days ago, doctors announced a successful birth for a woman who’d had long-frozen ovarian tissue – from when she was just 13 – transplanted back into her body over a decade later.

“If you don’t have a penis you are essentially dead…”

The world’s first successful penis transplant has been reported by a surgical team in South Africa. The 21-year-old recipient, whose identify is being protected, lost his penis in a botched circumcision.

Doctors in Cape Town said the operation was a success and the patient was happy and healthy. The team said there was extensive discussion about whether the operation, which is not life-saving in the same way as a heart transplant, was ethical.

There have been attempts before, including one in China. Accounts suggested the operation went fine, but the penis was later rejected.

Penis replacement

The man was 18 and already sexually active when he had the circumcision. The procedure is part of the transition from boyhood to adulthood in parts of South Africa. The boy was left with just 1cm of his original penis.

Doctors say South Africa has some of the greatest need for penis transplants anywhere in the world. Dozens, although some say hundreds, of boys are maimed or die each year during traditional initiation ceremonies.

Surgeons at Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital performed a nine-hour operation to attach a donated penis. One of the surgeons, Andre Van der Merwe, who normally performs kidney transplants, told the BBC News website: “This is definitely much more difficult, the blood vessels are 1.5 mm wide. In the kidney it can be 1 cm.” The team used some of the techniques that had been developed to perform the first face transplants in order to connect the tiny blood vessels and nerves.

The operation took place on 11 December last year. Three months later doctors say the recovery has been rapid. Full sensation has not returned and doctors suggest this could take two years. However, the man is able to pass urine, have an erection, orgasm and ejaculate.

Preparation

The procedure required a lot of preparation.

The team needed to be sure the patient was aware of the risks of a life-time of immunosuppressant drugs. Also some patients cannot cope with a transplant if they fail to recognise it as part of their body.

“Psychologically, we knew it would have a massive effect on the ego,” said Dr Van der Merwe. It took “a hell of a lot of time” to get ethical approval, he added.

One of the concerns is a heart transplant balances the risk of the operation against a certain death, but a penis transplant would not extend life span. Dr Van der Merwe told the BBC: "You may say it doesn’t save their life, but many of these young men when they have penile amputations are ostracised, stigmatised and take their own life.

“If you don’t have a penis you are essentially dead, if you give a penis back you can bring them back to life.”

Further attempts on other patients are expected to take place in three months time.

BB_Hoody · March 14, 2015, 12:29am

Was the doner of a different skin color?

Don_Barracuda · March 14, 2015, 12:39am

I had to stop reading at “1cm” for a moment

SoVi3t · March 14, 2015, 1:30am

sometimes you gotta break a few slabs of marble, before you carve a masterpiece statue (like mine).

uncut losers go home with your filthy turtlenecks

Yusuke_The_Detective · March 14, 2015, 1:36am

You do know that foreskin has nerve endings that can make sex more pleasurable right?

Taito · March 14, 2015, 2:12am

So when his friends talk about girls, and somebody goes “ugh she’s a blubbery landwhale, I wouldn’t even fuck her with somebody else’s dick!” he makes a weird nervous smile and changes the subject.

Blindknagg · March 14, 2015, 2:51am

If you masturbate with your new transplanted dick does that make you gay?

Hecatom · March 14, 2015, 3:10am

This question right here is the most important one that needs to be answered.

Vynce · March 14, 2015, 3:13am

Excerpt from his posting in the M4M section of Craigslist?

Reticently · March 14, 2015, 3:40am

My question is, if the donated penis is uncircumcised does this guy have to go through his rite of passage again?

chadouken · March 14, 2015, 4:09am

My question is, who the hell donated their penis? I’ve heard of orangutan heart transplants successful in people, and doctors are optimistic about pig hearts. I wonder if the guy got to choose what animal he wanted. I would have chosen a horse cock.

Hecatom · March 14, 2015, 4:17am

And if that is the case, would it be zoophilia?

Rhio2k · March 14, 2015, 4:56am

How the fuck do you circumcise someone and cut the whole damn thing clean off?!? I mean, really, wtf?? I realize Africa is all kinds of backwards, but damn, man. Get a DOCTOR to circumcise you, not a damn sangoma named Wreck-Dick Ralph.

Kromo · March 14, 2015, 5:16am

I just hope this means that girls in asian pornos can start fucking each other with REAL cocks rather than that fake skin colored strap on crap.
Just because it is censored doesn’t mean we can’t tell the difference, Japan.

Reticently · March 14, 2015, 5:52am

Surely Japan is putting this technology on the back-burner until after they perfect grafting viable octopus tentacles down there.

IglooBob · March 14, 2015, 5:54am

oh hell yes I’ve been waiting for this

time to turn my average white dick into a ginormous black one

Negative-Zer0 · March 14, 2015, 10:31am

Am I the ONLY one that thinks this is kind of gay?

StockyJam · March 14, 2015, 12:14pm

actually what would be best is a rabbi.
doctors are no good for circumcisions.
not that I approve of said barbaric body mutilations. I don’t.

angelpalm · March 14, 2015, 12:57pm

He wanted a circumcision not herpes yo.

Rhio2k · March 14, 2015, 4:40pm

Hell with that. NO dude’s mouth going near a penis is good, especially while it’s bleeding. Human mouths are fuckin’ filthy, and bizarro-world catholic priests are still bad.