'Tree Man Syndrome': Shahana to go under the knife within a week

A medical board yesterday decided to operate within a week on Shahana Khatun, possibly the country's first woman with “tree-man syndrome”. 

Medical examinations, including blood tests and biopsy, have already been done.

Shahana might need two surgeries initially, said Samanta Lal Sen, national coordinator of burn services in Bangladesh. “Hopefully, the first surgery will be conducted within a week.”

Doctors are planning to remove bark-like warts from her ear, face and knee.

Like Abul Bajandar, they wish to help the 10-year-old girl, find a solution to the rarest skin disorder, in which warts triggered by a virus thicken and harden into horns before branching out from the skin.

“We received an email from an American lab in Los Angeles, which asked for Shahana's blood, tissue and saliva samples for the diagnosis,” said Dr Sen, one of the six-member medical board.

Asked about Bajandar's lab report, he said the American lab was still testing his samples intensely to diagnose his illness. Hopefully, a complete report will come soon.

Headed by burn and plastic surgery unit chief Abul Kalam Azad, the medical board will treat Shahana completely free of cost, Dr Sen said, adding that he had recently heard about three to four more similar cases.

Daughter of a poor farmer in Netrokona, Shahana got prickly rashes on her face when she was only a year old. When she turned six, those began to grow and spread raising the alarm.

Two years later, rashes began to grow over her ears and right leg knee. Frantically, her father took her to a homeopathic doctor whose prescribed medicines she had for a month, but nothing changed.

Learning that, treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital would be free of cost, the poor father came to Dhaka along with the girl.

Earlier, Abul Bajandar, 26, was operated on at least 18 times at the same hospital to remove bark-like warts from his limbs. According to doctors, he may need four to five more surgeries.

Bajandar has been suffering from epidermodysplasia verruciformis, a rare skin disorder commonly known as tree-man illness that covers limbs with warts, making them look like tree branches.