Health & Medicine
Hong Kong Man Visits Doctor for Abdomen Swelling, Discovers He's a Woman
Benita Matilda
First Posted: Jun 05, 2013 08:03 AM EDT
A Hong Kong man who visited the doctor to seek treatment for an abnormal swelling in his abdomen received a rather shocking bit of news: doctors discovered that he was, in fact, a woman, because the swelling occurred due to the presence of a cyst on his ovary.
The 66-year-old Vietnamese born Chinese grew up as an orphan and had a history of urinary leakage since childhood. He had a small penis and had no testes. The man stopped growing once he reached puberty at the age of 10, reaching a height of just 1.37 meters. The patient, however, has decided to live as a male and plans to receive hormone treatment in the future, reports SCMP.com.
According to medical experts, this condition occurs due to a rare combination of two genetic disorders. The first one is Turner syndrome, that results due to chromosome problems. Women with this syndrome lack the ability to get pregnant, have short stature and lymphedema on both the feet and hands. The second is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) that boosts male hormones. It is due to CAH that the patient had some male features like a beard and small penis.
"It's an interesting and very rare case of having the two combinations. It probably won't be seen again in the near future," Chinese University pediatrics professor Ellis Hon Kam-lun said.
The patient was treated by medical experts at Kwong Wah Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital. According to doctors, there have been just six cases where both genetic disorders have been seen in medical literature. The study report suggests that one in 2,500-3,500 women are victims of Turner syndrome. Men have an X and Y chromosome and women have a pair of X chromosomes. Those with Turner syndrome have only one X chromosome, with the second chromosome partially missing.
If it was not for the ovarian cyst, the person's medical condition would have remained undetected and unknown.
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First Posted: Jun 05, 2013 08:03 AM EDT
A Hong Kong man who visited the doctor to seek treatment for an abnormal swelling in his abdomen received a rather shocking bit of news: doctors discovered that he was, in fact, a woman, because the swelling occurred due to the presence of a cyst on his ovary.
The 66-year-old Vietnamese born Chinese grew up as an orphan and had a history of urinary leakage since childhood. He had a small penis and had no testes. The man stopped growing once he reached puberty at the age of 10, reaching a height of just 1.37 meters. The patient, however, has decided to live as a male and plans to receive hormone treatment in the future, reports SCMP.com.
According to medical experts, this condition occurs due to a rare combination of two genetic disorders. The first one is Turner syndrome, that results due to chromosome problems. Women with this syndrome lack the ability to get pregnant, have short stature and lymphedema on both the feet and hands. The second is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) that boosts male hormones. It is due to CAH that the patient had some male features like a beard and small penis.
"It's an interesting and very rare case of having the two combinations. It probably won't be seen again in the near future," Chinese University pediatrics professor Ellis Hon Kam-lun said.
The patient was treated by medical experts at Kwong Wah Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital. According to doctors, there have been just six cases where both genetic disorders have been seen in medical literature. The study report suggests that one in 2,500-3,500 women are victims of Turner syndrome. Men have an X and Y chromosome and women have a pair of X chromosomes. Those with Turner syndrome have only one X chromosome, with the second chromosome partially missing.
If it was not for the ovarian cyst, the person's medical condition would have remained undetected and unknown.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone