First penis transplants in U.S. planned to help wounded soldiers: report

U.S. doctors are expected to perform what will be the first penis transplants in the country soon in an effort to help young soldiers wounded in combat, the New York Times reported Monday.

Only two such attempts have been reported in medical journals: a failed one in China in 2006 and a successful one in South Africa last year, the report said.

The new operation will involve receiving the organ from a deceased donor and could occur in just a few months, if all goes to plan. Surgeons from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been granted permission to perform 60 such transplants and a few initial candidates are being evaluated.

"We have one that we're moving forward with, and we're very far in the process," Richard Redett, director of pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins, told the NY Times, adding that he expected the patient to be put on the transplant waiting list soon. "That means you are really only waiting for a donor."

The university will pay the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 U.S. dollars for the first transplant and the Department of Veterans Affairs will pay for the drug that the man will need to prevent transplant rejection, the report said.

If it's successful, the university will ask the Defense Department for money to cover more operations, currently still considered experimental.

The procedure is expected to take about 12 hours, during which surgeons will connect two to six nerves, and six or seven veins and arteries, stitching them together under a microscope.

The doctors said they expect the transplanted penis to start working in a matter of months, developing urinary function, sensation and, eventually, the ability to have sex.

As for those who hope to father children, Wei-Ping Lee, chairman of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins said it is "a realistic goal" as long as their testes , where sperm are produced, are intact.

Opponents said that such transplants are not needed to save a patient's life, but supporters noted that that part of the body is strongly associated with the sense of self and identity as a male.

"Our young male patients would rather lose both legs and an arm than have a urogenital injury," the NY times quoted Scott Skiles, the polytrauma social work supervisor at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, as saying.

For now, the operation is being offered only to men injured in combat, Lee said. It is not available to transgender people, though that may change in the future. If the transplant fails, said Redett, the other doctor, it will be removed, leaving the recipient no worse off than before the surgery.

The U.S. Department of Defense Trauma Registry reported that 1,367 military servicemen suffered wounds to the genitals between 2001 and 2013 in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Nearly all were under 35 and were hurt by homemade bombs, commonly called improvised explosive devices.

The world's first penis transplant was performed on a Chinese patient in 2006. Unfortunately, the patient asked for the organ to be removed after only a few weeks because of "apparent psychological rejection," the Johns Hopkins doctors said, adding that in photographs the transplant had patches of dead and peeling skin, possibly from inadequate blood flow.

The second such transplant was conducted on a South African man whose penis had been amputated because of a botched circumcision. This operation was reportedly a success and the recipient was said to recently become a father. Enditem