LGBTQ news and entertainment
Under a new rule announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, people living with HIV who need a liver or kidney transplant will now be able to receive an organ from an HIV+ donor. Continue reading “New Rule Will Allow HIV+ Organ Transplants”
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| Thomas Manning (photo: Massachusetts General Hospital) |
A Massachusetts cancer patient has become the first man to receive a penis transplant in the United States.
After a nearly 15 hour operation, 64 year-old Thomas Manning appears to be recovering well and there are no signs of rejection. Most of Manning’s penis was removed during his bout with cancer four years ago.
From USA Today:
“Today I begin a new chapter filled with personal hope and hope for others who have suffered genital injuries, particularly for our servicemembers who put their lives on the line and suffer serious damage as a result,” Manning said in a statement.
Manning, a bank courier in Halifax, Mass., underwent the operation on May 8 and 9. The surgeons who led the 15-hour procedure, Curtis Cetrulo and Dickens Ko, said they were “cautiously optimistic” Manning will regain full urinary and sexual function.
“He’s doing well so far,” Cetrulo said at a news conference Monday. “He is up and out of bed. Emotionally he’s doing amazingly well. He’s a very positive person.”
Manning has been cancer free for about four years, the physicians said. He is not married but said the transplant could help make such a relationship possible.
The first ever penis transplant in the world took place in Africa in December 2014.
Big news for HIV+ patients who are in need of an organ transplant.
Surgeons at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center have successfully performed both liver and kidney transplants from an HIV+ donor to HIV+ patients.
From the Los Angeles Times:
In a first that gives HIV-infected patients yet another chance for long lives, surgeons at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center have transplanted a kidney and a liver from a dead donor who was HIV-positive into two HIV-positive recipients.
The transplant surgeries, which used organs donated by the family of an HIV-positive woman, ended a 25-year stretch in which the organs of HIV-infected people willing to donate them were rejected for use in transplants.
The experimental procedure follows the 2013 enactment of the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act, or HOPE, which repealed the ban on using such organs for transplantation.
“This is an unbelievably exciting day for our hospital and our team, but more importantly for patients living with both HIV and end-stage organ disease,” said Dr. Dorry L. Segev, the Johns Hopkins surgeon who performed the surgeries.
There are over 120,000 patients on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network’s waiting list. On average, 22 patients die every day while awaiting an available organ.
We have the technology. We can rebuild him.
Surgeons in South Africa has successfully completed the world’s first successful penile transplant.
The marathon nine-hour operation, led by Prof André van der Merwe, head of SU’s Division of Urology, was performed on 11 December 2014 at Tygerberg Hospital in Bellville, Cape Town. This is the second time that this type of procedure was attempted, but the first time in history that a successful long-term result was achieved.
The patient, whose identity is being protected for ethical reasons, has made a full recovery and has regained all function in the newly transplanted organ.
“Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery,” says Van der Merwe. The end result of the transplant was the restoration of all the patient’s urinary and reproductive functions.
Apparently, experts estimate that nearly 250 men lose their penis annually in South Africa due to infections relating to circumsion.
Nine more men are in line to be part of the study at Tygerberg Hospital.