Posted 3/13/2015 3:21 PM (GMT -5)
An article from Reuters about penis transplant:
UPDATE 1-S.African doctors perform world's first penis transplant
Fri, Mar 13 2015
(Adds initiation background, edits throughout)
By Wendell Roelf
CAPE TOWN, March 13 (Reuters) - South African doctors have successfully performed the world's first penis transplant on a 21-year-old man whose organ had been amputated three years ago after a botched circumcision.
The nine-hour operation, which took place in December, was part of a pilot study by Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch to help the 250 or so young South African men who lose their penises each year after coming-of-age rituals go wrong.
Doctors said the patient, who was not named, had already recovered full urinary and reproductive functions, and that the procedure could eventually be offered to men who have lost their penis to cancer or as a last resort for severe erectile dysfunction.
"Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery," Andre van der Merwe, the head of the university's urology unit who led the operation, said in a statement.
Another nine patients have now been lined up to have the operation.
Each year thousands of young South African men, mainly from the Xhosa tribe, mark their passage into manhood by shaving their heads and smearing themselves with white clay from head to toe, living in special huts away from the community for several weeks, and then undergoing ritual circumcision.
The South African government has promoted medical circumcisions over the less safe traditional practices. Last year, the Department of Health said it was studying a non-surgical, disposable circumcision device that it believed could also provide a safer alternative.
The Israeli device, PrePex, has been endorsed by the World Health Organization. (Editing by James Macharia and Kevin Liffey)