Mass. man receives nation’s first penis transplant

A man who had his penis removed due to cancer underwent a 15-hour surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital to receive the country’s first penis transplant.

Halifax, Massachusetts, resident Thomas Manning, 64, received the transplant after a surgery that spanned two days, May 8 and 9, and said that he has felt hardly any pain in connection to the procedure, the New York Times reported.

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“If I’m lucky, I get 75 percent of what I used to be,” Manning said to the Times. “Before the surgery, I was 10 percent. But they made no promises. That was part of the deal.”

Curtis Cetrulo and Dicken Ko were the doctors who led the team that performed the surgery, according to a statement from Massachusetts General Hospital, which described the procedure as a complex grafting of a donor organ’s vascular and neural structures onto Manning’s body.

“The entire transplant team has worked tirelessly to ensure that our patient is on the path to recovery, thanks in part to the gift of organ donation,” Cetrulo was quoted in the hospital’s statement.

Manning was anticipated to have normal urination possible within several weeks and sexual function in a span of weeks to months, Dr. Cetrulo said to the Times.

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The surgery was part of a program researching how best to help combat veterans with pelvic injuries, cancer patients and accident victims, the Times added.

“We are hopeful that these reconstructive techniques will allow us to alleviate the suffering and despair of those who have experienced devastating genitourinary injuries and are often so despondent they consider taking their own lives,” Dr. Cetrulo was quoted in the hospital’s statement.