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Recipient of First Penis Transplant in U.S. Is Released From Hospital
The man who received the first penis transplant in the United States left a hospital on Wednesday, three and a half weeks after the operation. He is recovering well, with good blood flow to the transplanted organ and no signs of rejection, his doctors said.
“Everything seems to be healing,” said the patient, Thomas Manning, 64, a bank courier from Halifax, Mass. “Everything’s fine. It’s going to get better, too.”
Mr. Manning needed the transplant because his penis was removed in 2012 to treat cancer. The replacement organ, from a deceased donor, was attached during a 15-hour operation on May 8 and 9 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
“He’s doing great,” said Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. “So far, so good. We’re very pleased.”
Dr. Cetrulo and Dr. Dicken Ko, the director of the hospital’s regional urology program, said that the operation had accomplished two main objectives: to restore normal-looking genitals and urinary function.
“He’s standing up and he’s aiming, just like the good old days,” Dr. Ko said.
The doctors said that they were hopeful that sensation and sexual function would also return, but that the process involved nerve regeneration and would occur over months. In hand transplants, Dr. Cetrulo said, sensation “comes back rapidly at a rudimentary level, but we’ve then seen continuing improvement for five years.”
Mr. Manning must take anti-rejection drugs every day for the rest of his life, and he will see doctors twice a week for the next few weeks to check for signs of rejection and adjust medicine doses.
His surgery was experimental, part of a research program with the eventual goal of helping veterans who sustained pelvic injuries in combat, as well as cancer patients and accident victims.
Another patient, burned in a car accident, will receive a transplant as soon as a matching donor becomes available, Dr. Cetrulo said.
Surgeons at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are also planning to perform penis transplants and have had a combat veteran, injured in Afghanistan, on a waiting list for several months.