Woman has 4 balloons implanted in her face to save her life

A woman has had four balloons implanted under her skin to save her life because doctors fear the birthmark that covers half her face could become cancerous.
Xiao Yan needs the bizarre treatment to allow her to grow new tissue that doctors can use to graft onto her face when the birthmark is removed.

 

The 23-year-old, from Longjing Village in Guizhou Province in south-western China, suffers from congenital melanocytic nevus which affects just one in 500,000 people.

She now has to endure several months of coping with the balloons stretching her skin in four areas before she can have her ‘new face’.

Woman has 4 balloons implanted in her face to save her life 

Medics at the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital in East China took action after her facial mole began to cause her pain last March and they recognised the risk of cancer cell growth.

Statistics regarding how often congenital melanocytic nevus becomes cancerous vary, with higher figures suggesting 5-10 per cent of cases and others as low as 1-2 per cent.

Ms Yan said she had been prepared to live with the massive mole on her face for the rest of her life.

‘Despite the big black mole on my face, I enjoyed my childhood playing with my friends,’ Ms Yan said, adding: ‘I was carefree.’
‘But as I grew older, the fact that I was “different” became increasingly magnified,’ she added.