Man rejects donated penis
2006-09-19 11:03
Beijing - A Chinese man who was the world's first recipient of a penis transplant had the organ removed two weeks later due to a "severe psychological problem", a leading medical journal said on Tuesday.
The man's penis had been damaged beyond repair in an accident, leaving him unable to urinate normally or have sexual intercourse, the report in European Urology said.
Doctors at a hospital in Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong province, performed the surgery last year using a penis from a 22-year-old brain-dead man.
But, just two weeks later, they cut the attached organ off after the man and his wife had difficulty accepting the donated penis, it said.
"The recipient could urinate smoothly in a standing position at day 10 (after the operation)," said the report, posted on the European Urology website.
Psychological consequences
"At day 14 postoperatively because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off."
There was no signs that the man's body was biologically rejecting the transplanted organ, it said.
Although penis transplants had not been performed before, doctors worldwide have successfully reattached penises that have been cut off, it said.
In an article for European Urology, Jean-Michel Dubernard, a French doctor who was involved in the world's first face transplant last year, said recipients of transplanted hands and faces suffer psychological consequences.
"Psychological consequences of hand and face allografts (transplants) 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 and see a dead person's face," Dubernard wrote.
But this can change over time as the transplant becomes more sensitive and the patients adjust to them, he said.
"Clearly, in the Chinese case the failure at a very early stage (day 14) was first psychological. It involved the recipient's wife and raised many questions. We have no information on the initial accident."
- AFP