- ROME (Reuters) - A leading Italian plastic surgeon who has asked health
officials for permission to carry out the world's first penis transplant
said on Tuesday that he already had three patients ready to undergo the
operation. ``This is not like the Bobbit case, where his penis was re-implanted,''
Professor Nicolo Scuderi said referring to the famous case of John Wayne
Bobbit, whose penis was re-attached in 1993 after his wife had cut it off.
``This would be the first time a penis is transplanted from one body to
another, whether it be from a living body or a corpse,'' he told Reuters
in an interview in his office at Rome's Umberto I hospital, Italy's largest.
``Technically this would not be a very complicated operation...a transplant
is easier than re-attachment,'' he said. But Scuderi said it was not clear
if a person who received a transplanted penis would be able to have an
erection. Scuderi made headlines on Tuesday when a Rome newspaper first
reported his recent request to the health ministry. He said he was spurred
to make the request after French doctors performed their own surgical first
when they transplanted an arm and a hand to an amputee.
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- Three people have told Scuderi they would
be willing to undergo the operation. Two are women who have received legal
permission to undergo sex change operations and would receive transplanted
penises. He said the third is a man who had had his penis amputated in
a sex change operation to become a woman but has since ``realised it was
a mistake'' and wants to return to being a man, Scuderi said. Scuderi's
surgical team already carries out penis reconstruction surgery for sex
change operations and amputee cases, including those where penises have
to be cut off because of cancer. This is usually done by using forearm
muscles.
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- ``We are ready. We are just waiting for
the OK,'' he said. The penis transplant operations could take place by
twinning sex-change patients. A man who wanted to become a woman could
donate his penis to a woman who wanted to become a man.
-
- He said penises could also be donated
by clinically dead patients on life-support equipment, which is a main
source of other transplant organs such as hearts, lungs and livers. ``We
can restore vascularity, we can restore sensitivity to the organ but we
don't know how much sensitivity and function will be regained,'' he said.
Scuderi said whether a patient who received a transplanted organ could
have an erection was still an unanswered question. ``This is a main concern,
a main question and maybe the answer will only be possible after the surgery,''
he said, adding that there could be large variations in the results.
-
- Scuderi acknowledged that ethical questions
would have to be addressed, particularly if the risks involved, including
immunological ones, could be justififed since the penis was not a vital
organ. ``Plastic surgery always favours innovation and breaking new frontiers.
I don't think that I am the only one that wants to do this type of surgery,
I just want to be sure that this type of surgery will benefit the patient,''
he said.
-
- ``I don't want only to be the first one.
The important thing is to see if the (health ministry) ethical committee
will allow this operation. I asked for the ministry's consent because I
want to be sure that it is the best thing to do,'' he said. Scuderi said
that at least at the beginning he would turn down any eventual requests
from men who wanted to receive a transplanted organ larger than their natural
one. ``For the moment the answer is 'no' because the surgery is very complicated
and very risky surgery. It's not an aesthetic procedure,'' he said.
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