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September 18, 2006

Presented Without Editorial Comment

Man rejects first penis transplant

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Monday September 18, 2006
The Guardian


Chinese surgeons have performed the world's first penis transplant on a man whose organ was damaged beyond repair in an accident this year. The incident left the man with a 1cm-long stump with which he was unable to urinate or have sexual intercourse. "His quality of life was affected severely," said Dr Weilie Hu, a surgeon at Guangzhou General Hospital.
Doctors spent 15 hours attaching a 10cm penis to the 44-year-old patient after the parents of a brain-dead man half his age agreed to donate their son's organ.

...Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Dr Hu said. An examination of the organ showed no signs of it being rejected by the body.

Jean-Michel Dubernard, the French surgeon who performed the world's first face transplant on a woman who had been attacked by a dog this year, said psychological factors were a serious issue for many patients receiving certain "allografts", or organs from donors. "Psychological consequences of hand and face allografts show that it is not so easy to use and see permanently a dead person's hands, nor is it easy to look in a mirror to see a dead person's face," he wrote in the journal. "Clearly, in the Chinese case the failure at a very early stage was first psychological. It involved the recipient's wife and raised many questions."

Posted by Mr. Bingley at September 18, 2006 07:54 AM

Comments

Posted by: tree hugging sister at September 18, 2006 09:27 AM

The wife was saying: "10 cm? I specifically requested 10 inches!"

Posted by: John at September 18, 2006 12:40 PM

I'll bet John can hum a few bars...

Posted by: tree hugging sister at September 18, 2006 12:53 PM

Dr. Sherman used to say "now we whip out our big 10 inch ... ruler" every once in a while in DE. Kept those discussions on Runge-Kutta a little more interesting, waiting for him to say something off-color.

He was drafted by the #^&$ing Browns, but went to Math grad school, instead. Was he sick or what? I bet he's a lot more careful now that Rosem's gone co-ed...

Posted by: John at September 18, 2006 02:02 PM