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TAIPEI - A Vietnamese woman suffering from a rare premature ageing disorder has been treated in Taiwan, doctors said Friday.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Mai, 28, began experiencing premature ageing when she was 10 years old but was unable to get proper treatment due to financial difficulties, doctors said.
She was diagnosed with the rare ageing disorder Werner syndrome. Nguyen had the appearance of a 70-year-old.
She also had walking difficulties and other health problems before coming to Taiwan in April, said doctors at China Medical University Hospital in central Taiwan.
At the hospital, she underwent plastic and other surgeries to rejuvenate her appearance and treat skin and lung conditions, they said.
Doctors said she marked the first treatment case of premature ageing in Taiwan.
She is expected to maintain her improved condition by taking medications and avoiding the sun.
"I feel like I am being reborn and there are hopes in my life again," she said through a translator in Taipei.
Taiwan has emerged as one of the most desired destinations for a great variety of medical treatments and plays an important role in providing medical relief to disadvantaged people suffering from rear diseases.
Perfectly illustrating this is a recent case of the "transformation" of an early aging Vietnamese woman, jointly announced yesterday in Taipei by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and the China Medical University Hospital (CMUH).
At 28 years of age, Nguyen looked and walked like a saddened 70-year-old woman, with wrinkled and sagging skin due to premature aging resulting from the autosomal recessive disease encrypted on her eighth set of chromosomes, Werner Syndrome.
Upon evaluation, the CMUH medical team in charge of Nguyen's case - a group of some 40 medical professionals from 12 departments - identified the woman's main medical complications resulting from Werner Syndrome as having multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome, pulmonary fibrosis, and vascular atrophy.
Over the past month, Nguyen underwent various treatments, a sophisticated cranial operation, and has received multiple plastic surgeries to restore her external youth.
She is now free of vasculitis and her lung function has improved substantially.
She can now walk decent distances without fearing that she might faint.
Despite slight plumpness in the face from her last plastic surgery, Nguyen smiled and said, through tears, "Thank you, Taiwan."
According to Superintendent of CMUH's International Medicine Service Center Chen Hong-ji, Nguyen has said that she has two birthdays, "One is the day I was born, and the other is the day I came to Taiwan, where I was given new hope."
Nguyen's case is a perfect example of a successful, international humanitarian medical effort, Chao Yuen-chuan, president of TAITRA, said at the press conference, encouraging further humanitarian efforts be introduced into the country.
This section of the article was taken from The China Post/Asia News Network.