14 DAY TRIAL // An elderly woman living in a village in China's Sichuan province has a horn-like mass growing on her forehead. The peculiar protuberance formed a couple of years back from a mole and now measures about 13 centimeters (5 inches) in length.
Doctors say the horn is actually a skin tumor comprising cells similar to the ones that form human hair and nails. They haven't yet determined whether it is benign or malignant, but they want to try and surgically remove it.
The woman's family never expected the growth to get this big
In an interview, the 87-year-old woman's son explained that it was about 8 years ago that the mole from which his mother's horn-shaped tumor grew started to itch.
Rather than seek medical help, the pensioner and her family attempted to treat it with a herbal remedy. For a while, everything seemed just fine. The mole stopped itching and so the woman and her family learned to simply ignore it.
Then, a couple of years back, it suddenly split open and the tumor started developing from it. At first, the horn only grew to measure about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in length.
Then, earlier this year, the woman's son knocked it off by mistake while washing his mother's hair. Soon enough, the horn returned and grew bigger than ever.
Not knowing what it was and how to deal with it, Liang Xiuzhen and her son Wang Zhaojun decided that it was time to book an appointment with local medical experts. More so since, now fairly big, the growth would often bleed.
“Now the horn hurts my mother and prevents her from sleeping. It also bleeds from time to time,” the woman's son explained, as cited by Mirror.
Neither the woman nor her family likes the idea of surgery
Doctors might have confidence that the tumor can be safely removed from the woman's forehead, but neither she nor her family likes the idea of surgery all that much.
They worry that, given her age, 87-year-old Liang Xiuzhen might not be strong enough to make it through such an intervention. Hence, at least for now, they have not decided whether they will allow medical experts to operate on her.
