The world’s tallest woman might finally stop growing after doctors removed a tumour from her brain.
Siddiqa Parveen, who is estimated to be 7ft 8in tall, travelled nearly 1,000 miles from her village in West Bengal for doctors in Delhi to save her life.
Before the operation, the 28-year-old had a spine ‘on the verge of breaking’ and was losing her sight as a result of her continuous growth.
Siddiqa suffered from gigantism brought on by the tumour, which was located on the pituitary gland, causing it to produce excess growth hormone.
She already had fractures in her spine and has been unable to stand up straight for years – and doctors in India believed if left untreated her increasing weight would cause her back to snap.
They also feared the ‘massive’ tumour would cause her to go blind, forcing them to transport her from her remote village in West Bengal to Delhi.
Neurosurgeon Dr Ashish Suri, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where Siddiqa was operated on, said the operation had been a success.
‘The tumour had to be taken out through the nose by inserting an endoscope through the nostrils,’ he said.
‘She suffered significant blood-loss during the operation as the tumour was a vascular one. But she coped well.’
Siddiqa’s size saw her recently crowned the world’s tallest woman by Guinness Book of Records – but it caused significant medical challenges.
Dr Suri said: ‘As her body frame was huge, it required a large operation table for which we had to join additional trolleys.’
Dr PK Bithal, head of neuroanesthesiology told The Indian Express: ‘Our maximum bed size is six feet, both in the operation theatre and ICU, so positioning her appropriately for surgery was a big problem.
‘Her head size was enlarged, which made access of the tumour with our instruments, like endoscopes, extremely difficult.
‘Anaesthetising her would be a problem with her head size, since we did not have endotracheal tubes of her head size, and she had difficulty lying down with the multiple fractures in her spine.’
Doctors have declared the surgery, which took place on January 16, a success. But authorities at the hospital say it is ‘the first of multiple steps in her road to complete recovery’.
Siddiqa, who weighs 285lbs and has enlarged hands and feet, has now been released from the intensive care unit but remains in hospital.
However, her problems are not just physical and doctors say she will need to be treated for a ‘psychosocial crisis’ – having been isolated for much of her life.
Dr Suri said: ‘She has been confined to her house for the major part of her life. An old teacher from her area is the only one she communicates with.’
It was also revealed that it took doctors weeks to communicate properly with Parveen, who hails from a poor family in south Dinajpur district of West Bengal and speaks only in Bengali.
‘She has been silent for so long, it will take us a long time to ensure her complete recovery,’ said Dr Tandon.
Siddiqa was mentioned in the 2014 Guinness Book of World Records as the new record holder after after the 2012 death of Yao Defen from China who, at 233.3 cm (7 feet 7 inches) was the tallest woman on earth.
