US war veteran gets full genital transplant

A team of surgeons in the United States performed the most complex male genital transplant to date, marking the third-ever successful operation of its kind.

In a 14-hour operation, a man whose genitals were blown off by an improvised explosive device while on a tour in the Middle East received an extraordinary transplant: A penis, scrotum and portion of the abdominal wall, taken from a deceased organ donor.

The team of 11 surgeons connected three arteries, four veins and two nerves, which they said should provide the new tissue with adequate blood and nerve sensation.

Regaining of nerve sensation is likely to take around six months.

“We are hopeful that this transplant will help restore near-normal urinary and sexual functions for this young man,” Dr W.P. Andrew Lee, professor and director of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

RECOVERY
The surgery, performed last month at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Massachusetts General Hospital, was termed the most complex and extensive penis transplant to date, and the first performed on a combat veteran maimed by a blast.

The military veteran, who requested to remain anonymous, had spent years feeling isolated and depressed following the loss of his penis, scrotum and knees.

“I feel whole again,” he said a month after surgery, the New York Times reported.

Two other successful procedures involving only the organ itself, not the scrotum or surrounding flesh, have been performed — in South Africa in 2014 and at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 2016.

SURGERY

This latest procedure, which cost John Hopkins an estimated Sh30 million to Sh40 million, transplanted a single piece of tissue that measured 10 inches by 11 inches and weighed four or two kilogrammes (five pounds).

That is why when the US team announced they had successfully completed the first-ever penis, scrotum, and partial abdominal wall transplant, it made medical history.

ACCIDENT
Genital injuries are rare, making a transplant a complicated procedure that includes connecting all the arteries, veins, nerves, the skin and the urethra to the recipient.

In Kenya, doctors at Kenyatta National Hospital in 2015 tried a similar procedure on a 17-year-old boy who lost his genitals in a motorbike accident on Thika Road.

The doctors took a chunk of skin from the boy’s forearm and used it to shape a new penis for him.

The surgeons then used a thin tube made from medical grade materials known as a catheter to create a urine passage for the patient.