Penis transplant: welcome to the frontier of a fascinating science | Celine Gounder

Transplant medicine has overcome problems of infection, rejection and surgical complexity. Now we just need more people to become donorsThe first penile transplant in the US was performed on cancer survivor Thomas Manning at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital last week. This paves the way for the treatment of other cancer patients, wounded veterans, burn victims and all those who’ve suffered genital trauma or needed radical surgery to save their lives. Transplanting a penis is technically much simpler than transplanting a lung or liver, so why did it take this long?Transplant medicine is much older than many realize. Over 3,000 years ago, the ancient Indian physician Sushruta used skin transplants – more commonly today called grafts – to reconstruct noses amputated as punishment for crimes. As early as the 1600s, patients were treated with animal blood infusions or bone transplants. But early transplant medicine was thwarted by infections and the immune system. Our skin is one of our most basic defenses – acting like the high walls and moat of a medieval city – guarding us against invasion by all sorts of microbes in the environment. An appreciation of the germ theory and the need for antisepsis – at first with carbolic acid, a corrosive chemical that burns, bleaches and numbs the skin and is poisonous to the lungs if inhaled – helped bring down surgical death rates dramatically. Anesthesia made it possible to undertake long complicated surgeries without...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Health Science Society US news World news Medical research Source Type: news