- Oct 9, 1999
- 46,549
- 9,893
- 146
A man whose penis was removed because of cancer has received the first penis transplant in the United States, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Thomas Manning, 64, a bank courier from Halifax, Mass., underwent the 15-hour transplant operation on May 8 and 9. The organ came from a deceased donor.
I want to go back to being who I was, Mr. Manning said on Friday in an interview in his hospital room. Sitting up in a chair, happy to be out of bed for the first time since the operation, he said he felt well and had experienced hardly any pain.
Dr. Dicken Ko (you can't make this stuff up!) and co-team leader Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo did the deed, re-manning Mr. Manning.
If all goes as planned, normal urination should be possible for Mr. Manning within a few weeks, and sexual function in weeks to months, Dr. Cetrulo said.
That's amazing! And, in all seriousness, success with this procedure could change the lives of a lot of young, wounded veterans:
Veterans are a major focus of transplant programs in the United States because suicide rates are exceptionally high in soldiers with severe damage to the genitals and urinary tract, Dr. Cetrulo said. Theyre 18- to 20-year-old guys, and they feel they have no hope of intimacy or a sexual life, he said. They cant even go to the bathroom standing up.
[...]
From 2001 to 2013, 1,367 men in the military suffered so-called genitourinary injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense Trauma Registry. Nearly all were under 35 and had been hurt by homemade bombs, commonly called improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s. Some lost part or all of their penises.