Within a year, maybe in just a few months, a young soldier with a horrific injury from a bomb blast in Afghanistan will have an operation that has never been performed in the United States: a penis transplant.
The organ will come from a deceased donor, and the surgeons, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, say they expect it to start working in a matter of months, developing urinary function, sensation and, eventually, the ability to have sex.
From 2001 to 2013, 1,367 men in military service suffered wounds to the genitals in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nearly all were under 35 and were hurt by homemade bombs, commonly called improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s.
Some lost all or part of their penises or testicles — what doctors call genitourinary injuries and could not be replaced. But all that has come to an end now as America will start carrying out penis transplants with soldiers being first beneficiaries.
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