Charles Teves
- A man from the Bronx fell down and got an x-ray
- Doctors saw that his bone was transitioning into bone in one of the many rare cases
- The man left without further treatment
A 63-year-old man from Bronx, New York discovered that his penis was turning into a bone (no pun intended).
The man allegedly fell down and complained about pain in his knees. He went and got an X-Ray. The doctors checked the results and saw that he had no problems with his pelvis, but they found something strange.
The results showed that there was a ‘plaque-like calcification’ at the base of the penis.
The doctors came up with the diagnosis of ‘ossification’, which means a part of the body that is transitioning into becoming a bone.
According to the unidentified 63-year-old, he fell down and landed on his buttocks but did not lose consciousness nor did he hit his head.
He was walking with a cane when he was last seen at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center.
He complained of pain in one of his knees and on his groin area. The man was disappointed with the diagnosis and left without accepting further treatment.
Georges El Hasbani from the American University of Beirut said that this case is very rare.
“Penile ossification remains a relatively rare condition being mentioned in very few journals, with less than 40 published case reports.”
The reason for the ossification is that the man probably sustained Peyronie’s disease, where “internal scarring causes the sex organ to bend sharply in one direction.” Tissues may convert into bones when calcium is built up in one area which may be caused by cancer or kidney diseases.
Richard Viney, a urological surgeon in Birmingham concluded that the man had Peyronie’s disease.
‘In very rare cases, the scarring process [of Peyronie’s disease] is so excessive it can involve the deposition of calcium, toughening the scar tissue and this is what is being described in this case.”
Viney says that it is not the entire penis that is transitioning but just a portion of it, and it is nearly impossible for the entire organ to turn into bone. Nevertheless, the condition is still very much serious.
“It is easy to think that the patient’s entire penis is calcifying but it is only the fibrous Bucks fascia just below the skin. These plaques would be palpable and hard to the touch. They can be quite extensive and it is possible with time that all of Bucks fascia could be involved, but this is unlikely.
‘As the stretchiness of the fascia is lost, erections would be limited in their scope and there may be considerable bend. Indeed there may well be a complete erectile failure,” he added.
Moreover, Viney stated that surgery is the only treatment that is advisable.
The hospital even mentioned that the man’s condition was too advanced for them to just go and treat it with surgery.
Viney concluded by saying, ‘The whole penis won’t turn to bone as it only involves Bucks fascia so, at worst, it would only be a boney cylinder filled with the two spongy corpora [cylinders inside the shaft] and the urethra itself.’
