The 30-year-old urologist performed the operation to remove the ‘tumour’ a month after diagnosing the man, believed to be in his 60s, with cancer.

Reports suggest that the penis removal operation went down without a hitch- until later analysis revealed there was no reason for it to have occurred in the first place.

The devastated patient is now seeking compensation from the bungling medic over the mutilation, which took place at San Donato Hospital in Arezzo, Tuscany, on 13th November 2018.

The case has a preliminary court hearing scheduled for 9th March in Arezzo.

A similar case was reported in France in December last year, after a series of errors resulted in the ‘total removal’ of a man’s penis at the Nantes University Hospital.

The man, reported to be in his 30s, said the surgery left him with just his testicles and ‘no feeling’ where his member once was.

‘I have hatred towards this doctor who did not listen to me,’ the unidentified victim told local news publication France Bleu. ‘He played Russian roulette with me!’

He told the news site: I’m really devastated and it’s really shameful.’

The patient said after the surgery ‘inside I knew it. It was either death or that. And indeed he had removed everything. He had just left the testicles and had cut at the base.’

‘But you can’t replace the feeling of a penis with several sensors.’

The Frenchman’s lawyer was initially hoping to win his client 1 million euros, but local reports suggest he was eventually awarded 62,000 euros (£55k) in damages.