This year has been the year of amazing transplants from a face transplant and now U.S. doctors are expected to perform a rare penis transplant surgery in the next couple of months. The first U.S. penis transplant will be performed on a young soldier that sustained a genital injury while serving in Afghanistan.
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The surgery will take place at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. The decision to perform this type of transplant came from the need of this type of transplant. There over 1367 U.S. military service members that have sustained genital wounds while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2013.
The transplant is extremely rare and has been done only 2 times, one surgery was successfully done in South Africa and other was not. The 12-hour surgery consists of developing urinary function, sensation and eventually the ability to have sex by attaching the organ, which will come from a deceased person.
The hope is that the veteran regains sensation anywhere from 6 to 12 months after the transplant is performed. Only the penis will be transplanted, not the testes, where the sperm is produced, which means that that the person receiving this transplant would be able to have a child with his own DNA.
Some of the risks from the surgery include bleeding and infection, even though the medicine that prevents the body from rejecting the organ also recipients of this transplant at risk for cancer.
At least 60 transplants are expected to be performed. John Hopkins will keep a close eye on the transplants and monitor the surgeries, since its considered experimental.