May 19 (UPI) -- Surgeons in southern California successfully completed the world's first-ever human bladder transplant in what's being called a potentially "game-changing" new surgical method for victims of bladder dysfunction.
Oscar Larrainzar, a father of four in his 40s who lost most of his bladder during a tumor removal process, saw a successful medical procedure on May 4 by surgeons from the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California's Keck school of Medicine in a surgery completed at UCLA's Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
"This first attempt at bladder transplantation has been over four years in the making," Dr. Nima Nassiri, an assistant professor of urology and kidney transplantation who leads UCLA's program for vascularized composite bladder allograft transplants, said Sunday.
The "historic" surgery was part of a UCLA clinical trial designed by Nassiri and Dr. Inderbir Gill, the founding executive director of USC's Institute of Urology, after a four-year collaborative with a hope to see more bladder transplants "in the near future."
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