French doctors perform the world's first partial face transplant in December 2005. A report in European Urology has revealed that a Chinese man who was the world's first recipient of a penis transplant had the organ removed two weeks later due to a "severe psychological problem".(File Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

    BEIJING, Sept. 20(Xinhuanet) -- Surgeons in China who said they performed the first successful penis transplant had to remove the donated organ because of the severe psychological problems it caused to the recipient and his wife.

    Dr. Weilie Hu and surgeons at Guangzhou General Hospital performed the complex 15-hour surgery on a 44-year old man whose penis had been damaged in a traumatic accident.

    The microsurgery to attach the penis, which had been donated by the parents of a 22-year-old brain-dead man, was successful but Hu and his team removed it two weeks later.

    "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Hu said in a report published online by the peer reviewed journal European Urology, without elaborating.

    "This is the first reported case of penile transplantation in a human," Hu added.

    Both the man and his wife had requested the surgery. He had been unable to have intercourse or urinate properly since the accident that occurred eight months before the surgery was performed.

    Ten days after the operation, which had been approved by the hospital's medical ethical committee, the recipient had been able to urinate.

    There had been no signs of the 10-centimeter (4-inch) organ being rejected by the recipient's body. But Hu said more cases and longer observation are needed to determine whether sexual sensation and function can be restored.

    "The patient finally decided to give up the treatment because of the wife's psychological rejection, as well as the swollen shape of the transplanted penis" Hu added. Enditem