ON THIS DAY

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March 26, 2018:

US soldier receives world's first penis and scrotum transplant at Johns Hopkins University

On this day in 2018 surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital performed the world’s first total penis and scrotum transplant.

The patient suffered a devastating injury several years earlier from an improvised explosive device while serving in Afghanistan. He lost both his legs in the explosion as well. The 14-hour procedure repaired his abdominal wall, gave him a new scrotum and attached a donor penis. The surgical team consisted of nine Johns Hopkins plastic surgeons and two urological surgeons.

Doctors chose not to give the patient testicles after consulting with bioethicists. They determined that the sperm-generating tissue would confer the potential for having children with genetic material from the donor.

Two weeks after the penis surgery, the patient received bone marrow infusions from the donor. The procedure, pioneered by the same Johns Hopkins team, modulates the immune response that causes patients to reject transplanted organs, so the patient needs only one low-dose maintenance immunosuppression medication per day.

Over a year on from this world-first transplant, the medical team reported the patient was recovering well, with the organ and its reestablished nerve connections functioning about as well as could be hoped for. "He has near-normal erections and the ability to achieve orgasm," the researchers wrote in their case report.

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