Phantom pain is a common and much studied phenomenon after amputation.The loss of visceral
organs is also associated with phantom pain. Under entirely different conditions than the
removal of a tumorous testicle, sex reassignment surgery from male to female sex occurs in
transsexual women. In this operation, parts of the penis and both testicles are removed and a
plastic surgical transformation is made into a female genital.The surgical trauma is greater
compared to an orchidectomy.
The sex reassignment surgery is expressly desired, the amputated tissues are rejected or
perceived as not belonging to the patient's own body and thus do not appear as a loss. The
group of patients with tumor orchidectomy acts as a control group.
In addition to the incidence of phantom pain and chronic local postoperative pain in
comparison between the two groups, the secondary objectives of the study were defined as the
occurrence of phantom pain, the type of pain and the intensity of pain.
Two patient groups were compared, the group after sex reassignment surgery (GAC) and the
group after inguinal orchidectomy for testicular tumor (ORC).
A total of 265 transgender women were written to, 46 of whom had undergone surgery in
Tübingen and 219 in Munich. The operations took place between 2002 and 2014.
For the group of patients after orchidectomy, 158 men who had undergone surgery in Tuebingen
between 2010 and 2014 were contacted by letter.
The pseudonymization was done with a combination of letters and numbers, which were created
with a key generator program.
The patients received a questionnaire divided into several categories, these categories were
questions on demography, pre- and postoperative pain as well as phantom pain, pain
processing, quality of life, sex life and urological questions.
