I was recently asked this question regarding the tissue used to lengthen the urethra:
Am I right in thinking the tissue from your mouth is now inside your penis? Were you given any other options apart from your cheek as to where to harvest that from?
That is correct, the tissue harvested from inside my left cheek was used to lengthen the urethra. They use cheek tissue specifically because of the type of tissue it is, called buccal mucosa. It shares some important tissue characteristics with that of urethral tissue. I am not aware of what other tissues may be used for this purpose.
That being said, as a student in the field of Regenerative Medicine I have been closely following the research of Dr. Anthony Atala at Wake Forest University (
http://www.wakehealth.edu/WFIRM/). Dr Atala has developed the means of producing new urethral tissue (among other tissue types) in a lab, made of your own cells. While this technology is still very new and not widely available, it has had a very high success rate; your own cells means zero rejection. It is only a matter of time before transgender patients can benefit from this incredible innovation. Research like this is the entire reason I chose to study in this field.
My surgeon, Dr. Miro, personally knows Dr. Atala, as they both attend the annual American Urological Association conferences. I think it is also helpful that Dr. Miro is NOT a plastic surgeon, he is a pediatric urologist. He would be far more qualified than some other surgeons to combine the two technologies for FtM patients in the future.
I did not have the patience to wait for this convergence, there’s no telling exactly how long it will take. But if any of you are looking at having a metoidioplasty or phalloplasty in the distant future, I’d keep my eye on Dr. Atala’s progress. It is my hope that once I finish my next degree I can begin to bring together researchers from various sub-disciplines of the medical research community. Scientists and doctors whose research presents possible benefits to the transgender community.
Other organs successfully grown in a lab and transplanted into patients:
Bladder
Ear
Trachea