World's tallest woman starts treatment
Thu Jun 15, 2006 10:50 AM BST
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Yao Defen, believed to be the world's tallest woman, has begun treatment in a Shanghai hospital for a brain tumour which is largely responsible for her extraordinary height.
Yao, who is from a poor farming family in eastern China's Anhui province, is 2.36 metres (7.74 ft) tall, Chinese doctors say. That is 5 cm taller than Sandy Allen of the United States, who is currently listed by the Guinness World Records as the world's tallest woman.
Yao, 36, suffers from a large tumour in her pituitary gland, which has stimulated her body to release excessive amounts of growth hormone and has made her bones weak, doctors say.
"I will never be able to lead a normal life, but I hope I'll be able to take care of myself, buy groceries and cook my own food," Yao told Reuters on Thursday by telephone from Ruijin Hospital. "Now it makes me too tired," she said.
Yao is now being treated with a growth hormone inhibitor, her brother Yao Deqing said. Following an examination in the second half of this year, the hospital will decide when to conduct surgery.
"She has shown good responses to medicines we used on her tumor, which is expected to shrink by 30 percent when we do the surgery," Ning Guang, vice president of Ruijin Hospital, told the Shanghai Daily.
Yao gained most of her height during childhood, and suffers from medical problems such as an enlarged heart and osteoporosis, a disease in which bones become fragile and more likely to break.
She previously worked with a circus to support herself and her mother, and was only able to receive treatment after her story was broadcast internationally by the Discovery Channel.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/print?id=2079333
