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Aman dubbed the “tree man” had 2.4 kilograms of the gnarled warts covering his body removed in a three-hour operation on Friday, but doctors held out little hope for any real improvement.

Hardisiswoe Soedjana, the head of the surgical team at Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung, where Dede is being treated, said doctors were still no closer to finding a cure for the disease.

“This case is very rare and there is no treatment for it,” he said, “We are very determined to look for a new formula.”

Hardisiswoe said that after performing a number of operations to remove the warts, the only post-surgery treatment doctors could give Dede was to rub the infected areas of his body with salicylic acid lotion, an ointment used to treat warts.

“There is no significant improvement from this latest surgery,” he said.

Hardisiswoe said doctors had found new warts growing on parts of Dede’s body that had previously not been infected, such as his stomach and face.

Dede, 37, said his condition began when a small wart developed after he cut his knee as a teenager, and that the warts had since spread over his body.

Doctors began operating on Dede in 2007, removing an initial five kilograms of warts. Another operation in August 2009 removed six kilograms of the warts.

The operations were initially declared a success and doctors had hoped that Dede would be able to resume a normal life. After the August operation, he was able to open and close his hands and feel sensation in them.

“He was able to use a pen and pick things up,” Rachmat Dinata, a doctor at Hasan Sadikin Hospital, said last December. “But he has now lost those abilities again.

“Since August, the size of his hands has swelled by 30 percent and they can’t function normally,” Rachmat said.

Dede’s condition is caused in part by a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, which prevents his body from being able to contain the warts.

The virus “hijacks” the cellular processes of his skin cells, causing them to produce massive amounts of the substance that builds up tree-like growths known as “cutaneous horns,” mostly on his hands and feet.

As a result of his condition, Dede has been fired from his job, been unable to find new work, deserted by his wife and shunned by neighbors. For a while, he took part in a “freak show” circus act in Bandung to earn money.



Antara, JG