Chinese doctors report the world's tallest woman is walking again after spending a month in the hospital to treat complications of her gigantism.
Yao Defen, who is just over 7 1/2 feet tall, has a number of medical problems resulting from a benign tumor on her pituitary gland that makes it secrete excessive amounts of growth hormone, the Shanghai Daily said Friday.
Yao, 36, gained most of her height during childhood, and while her body still produces excess hormone, doctors think she won't continue to grow.
"She has shown good responses to medicines we used on her tumor, which is expected to shrink by 30 percent when we do surgery," a hospital spokesman told the Daily.
Walking with the aid of crutches, Yao is looking forward to living a normal life without having to depend on others, the newspaper said.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
Related stories:
Gene's newly explained effect on height may change tumor disorder treatment
A mutation that causes a childhood tumor syndrome also impairs growth hormone secretion, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.
Estrogen helps drive distinct, aggressive form of prostate cancer
Using a breakthrough technology, researchers led by a Weill Cornell Medical College scientist have pinpointed the hormone estrogen as a key player in about half of all prostate cancers.
Late treatment with letrozole can reduce breast cancer recurrence risk
Treatment with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole (Femara) can reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence even when initiated one to seven years after a course of tamoxifen therapy. The results of a study involving women originally in the placebo arm of an international trial of letrozole will appear in the
Journal of Clinical Oncology and are receiving early online release.
Taking the fight against cancer to heart
Hormones produced by the heart eliminated human pancreatic cancer in more than three-quarters of the mice treated with the hormones and eliminated human breast cancer in two-thirds of the mice, according to researcher David Vesely, a doctor at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa and a professor at the University of South Florida (USF).
Walking prevents bone loss caused from prostate cancer treatment
Exercise may reduce, and even reverse, bone loss caused by hormone and radiation therapies used in the treatment of localized prostate cancer, thereby decreasing the potential risk of bone fractures and improving quality of life for these men, according to a study presented on October 28, 2007, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology’s 49th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.
Melanoma drug revs immune cells but cancer cells ignore it
A new study shows that an important drug used in the treatment of malignant melanoma has little effect on the melanoma cells themselves. Instead, it activates immune-system cells to fight the disease.
Ethanol injection helps manage bone metastasis in thyroid cancer patients
Percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI)—an injection of ethanol (alcohol) through the skin directly into a bone tumor to kill cancer cells—may be a valuable ancillary treatment for thyroid cancer patients whose cancer has spread to the bone. Japanese researchers announced these findings during the 54th Annual Meeting of SNM, the world's largest society for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine.
'Guardian of the Genome' Protein Found to Underlie Skin Tanning
A protein known as the “master watchman of the genome” for its ability to guard against cancer-causing DNA damage has been found to provide an entirely different level of cancer protection: By prompting the skin to tan in response to ultraviolet light from the sun, it deters the development of melanoma skin cancer, the fastest-increasing form of cancer in the world.