A Chinese man has undergone surgery to remove a 3.3lb (1.5kg) tumour from his face.
Huang Chuncai, 37, from Hunan province, has been dubbed ‘China’s Elephant Man’. He suffers from an extreme case of neurofibromatosis, which has caused large tumours on his face that have completely distorted his features.
He is said to have the world’s worst recorded case of the condition.
On Wednesday he underwent another round of surgery at a hospital in Guangzhou to remove the tumour from his left cheek.
The operation was successful and he will now have two more to try and get his condition under control.
Although many people who have the condition inherit it from one of their parents, up to 50 per cent develop it randomly from a gene mutation before they are born.
Huang’s tumours, which five years ago were said to weigh 33lb (15kg), have put such pressure on his body that it has deformed his backbone, stunted his growth and left him in continual pain.
The tumour first became noticable when he turned four and as he grew up, it became bigger and bigger.
He is said to have quit school when he was 10 years old because his classmates laughed and alienated him because of his condition.
All of his teeth fell off at the age of 25 and thereafter, he found it difficult to speak and eat.
It has also been reported that several years ago, a circus approached his father to buy his son for holding ‘monster performances’, but his parents refused.
Huang had surgery in 2007 and 2008 – the first to remove the 33lb tumour. The surgery was extremely risky due to the high chance of heavy bleeding.
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