Finally, a gender surgery that actually helps someone who truly needs it…
A cancer sufferer has received America’s first ever penis transplant after undergoing experimental surgery to attach a dead man’s member.
Thomas Manning, 64, underwent the revolutionary operation at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, enduring an incredible 15-hours on the operating table.
The surgery was carried out as part of a study to help combat victims, cancer patients and those injured in accidents, reports the New York Times.
Mr Manning suffered severe injuries after an accident at work involving heavy equipment – during treatment doctors noticed a growth on his penis and he was later diagnosed with a aggressive form of penile cancer.
While it is rare, there are bout 2,030 new cases and 340 deaths expected in the US in 2016, the consequences of the cancer can destroy a sufferer’s life.
Many find the loss devastating for their confidence and sense of identity, a feeling Mr Manning can relate to.
He said: ‘Men judge their masculinity with their bodies.’
To save his life doctors were forced to remove most of his penis, leaving him with just a stump about one-inch in length.
The circumstances of the amputation would be life-altering, he would have to urinate sitting down and could not be intimate with anyone.
He said: ‘I wouldn’t go near anybody. I couldn’t have a relationship with anybody. You can’t tell a woman, ‘I had a penis amputation.’
However, Mr Manning never gave up hope of a transplant – despite the fact surgeons had not even considered such a procedure at the time – and a year after his surgery, doctors got in touch.
He endured a grueling year of tests and psychological evaluations, but was eventually put on the waiting list and after just two weeks a donor with the right blood type and skin color was found.
During surgery doctors connected nerves, veins and arteries from the donor penis to Mr Manning.
Nerves are then expected to grow into the penis at a rate of about one inch per month, eventually enabling sexual function.
However, it was by no means plain sailing from there – after the operation Mr Manning began to hemorrhage and was taken back to the hospital for treatment.
Thankfully, the complication did not prove to be fatal and after recovering he began to dream of getting his love life back and working again.
However, he admits he is still too scared to check out the results of the surgery.
He said: ‘If I’m lucky, I get 75 percent of what I used to be,’ he said. ‘Before the surgery I was 10 percent. But they made no promises. That was part of the deal.’
While Mr Manning is breaking ground in the US he is by no means the first to have such an operation worldwide.
Last year a 21-year-old man in South Africa underwent nine-hours of surgery to have a donor member attached, after he was left with just a 1cm stump for a penis due to a botched circumcision.
Miraculously after his life-changing surgery he later announced he had impregnated his partner.
However, not all of the donations have a happy ending – sadly ten years ago, a man in China received a transplant, but asked surgeons to remove the donated penis two weeks after the operation.
Back in the United States another patient will hope to benefit from the same surgeons that helped Mr Manning.
The patient’s penis was destroyed by burns in a car accident and he is now waiting for a transplant, while surgeons at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, are hoping to operate on a combat veteran who suffered injuries in Afghanistan.
The estimated cost of the operations can be as much as $75,000 but Johns Hopkins and Massachusetts General are footing the bill and the doctors are working for free.
In particular armed forces veterans are a concern in the United States due to the alarming rise in suicide rates that effect those with damage to their penises – from 2001 to 2013, 1,367 suffered such injuries.
Dr. Curtis L. Cetrulo one of the leading surgeons on the team at Massachusetts General Hospital, said a transplant can save a life.
Describing the veterans he said: ‘They’re 18- to 20-year-old guys, and they feel they have no hope of intimacy or a sexual life. They can’t even go to the bathroom standing up.’
We congratulate this man and wish him the best!
