South African University teaching Hospital Performs World’s First Peni5 Transplant

Doctors in a South African university teaching hospital have
successfully performed the world’s first penis transplant on a
21-year-old man whose organ had been amputated three years ago after a
failed  circumcision.

The nine-hour operation, which took place in December 2014, was part
of a pilot study by Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town and the University
of Stellenbosch to help the 250 or so young South African men who lose
their penises each year after coming-of-age rituals go wrong.

Doctors said the patient, who was not named, had already recovered
full urinary and reproductive functions, and that the procedure could
eventually be offered to men who have lost their penis to cancer or as a
last resort for severe erectile dysfunction.

Dr Andre van der Merwe, the head of the university’s urology unit
who led the operation, said “Our goal was that he would be fully
functional at two years and we are very surprised by his rapid
recovery.”

He added that “this is a very serious situation. For a young man of
18 or 19 years the loss of his penis can be deeply traumatic.”

Another nine patients have now been lined up to have the operation.

Each year thousands of young South African men, mainly from the
Xhosa tribe, mark their passage into manhood by shaving their heads and
smearing themselves with white clay from head to toe, living in special
huts away from the community for several weeks, and then undergoing
ritual circumcision.

But in May 2013, more than 20 youths died after initiation rituals
in the northerly Mpumalanga province, prompting rare cross-party calls
for reform of a traditional practice.

A few months later, police made several arrests on suspicion of
murder after 30 young men died in coming-of-age rituals in rural Eastern
Cape. Unlawful circumcisions have been known to injure up to 300 young
men across the province in the space of a week.

The South African government has promoted medical circumcisions over
the less safe traditional practices. Last year, the Department of
Health said it was studying a non-surgical, disposable circumcision
device that it believed could also provide a safer alternative.

The Israeli device, PrePex, has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation.

It has been piloted at several non-profit sites across South Africa but has not yet been introduced in government hospitals.

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